(Netflix.com)
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, vicomte de Saint-Exupéry, known simply as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, was a French writer, poet, journalist and aviator. Source: Wikipedia
Died 1 July 1944
The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse in Leo acts as a powerful cosmic accelerator. Metaphysically, it symbolizes a profound shadow-side reset, marrying the fiery, heart-centered, and ego-driven energy of Leo with a temporary blackout of conscious vitality, forcing a deep reckoning with personal authenticity, courage, and inner truth. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The Leo Archetype and the Ego
The Shadowed New Beginning
If you’d like to explore how this impacts you personally, tell me your zodiac sign or rising sign so we can look at which life area this Leo eclipse activates for you.
(theseasonalsoul.com)
Late Summer is a threshold season.
The first harvest has arrived. Something has grown. Something has been forming in your life, whether you’ve been tending it consciously or not. And now, as the light begins to subtly change, the energy of the year starts to turn.
We are not fully in autumn yet. But we are no longer in the bright outwardness of early summer either. This is the long, golden in-between — a season of ripening, discernment, preparation, and reorientation. The solar eclipse arrives in the middle of that threshold, intensifying the quiet sense that something is shifting beneath the surface.
The August 12 solar eclipse arrives in late summer, bringing the energy of a New Moon magnified — a shadowed beginning, a moment of transformation, and an invitation to notice what is stirring beneath the surface. Spiritually, this eclipse invites you to pause, release what has run its course, and return to deeper alignment with yourself before the season begins to turn inward.
Spiritually, a solar eclipse is like a new moon magnified. It brings the energy of new beginnings, but not always in a clear or obvious way. It is a shadowed beginning — a moment when ordinary visibility is disrupted, and something deeper has a chance to emerge.
Solar eclipses only occur during new moons. It is a moment when the moon moves between the earth and the sun, casting shadow across the light. For a little while, what we usually see is hidden. The brightness dims. The familiar shape of the day is interrupted.
And spiritually, that interruption matters. Because sometimes the light we are used to seeing by is not the same as clarity. Sometimes, when the usual brightness fades, we can finally notice what has been hidden.
During a solar eclipse, the sun gives way to darkness. Something unseen is being revealed. Something beneath the surface may begin to stir. Something in you may be ready to step forward, even if you do not yet know exactly what it is.
A solar eclipse can signal a deeper turning point — the beginning of a larger chapter, a shift that may continue unfolding over weeks or months. This solar eclipse is not asking you to rush forward. It is asking you to pause, listen, and notice what is beginning in the dark.
We often think new beginnings should feel exciting, obvious, or clean. A door opens. A path appears. A clear vision arrives. But eclipse beginnings are not always like that.
Eclipses happen in shadow, so they rarely reveal everything at once. The ending and the beginning may not be completely clear yet. You may not know what is shifting. You may not have language for what is changing. You may simply feel more tender, more restless, more aware that something inside you is asking for your attention.
That does not mean you are doing it wrong. It may mean you are standing at the beginning of a transformation that is still unfolding beneath the surface.
This is especially true in late summer. In nature, fruit does not ripen all at once. It forms slowly. It gathers sweetness over time. It needs warmth, attention, and patience before it is ready to be harvested. The same can be true for your own becoming.
Something may be ripening in you now that is not ready to be named yet. Something may be asking for more space, more honesty, more light.
During a solar eclipse, the earth moves into the sun’s shadow, making it a good time to get a glimpse of our own shadows. And that feels like the heart of this eclipse: Not fear. Not urgency. Not prediction. Just attention.
What is arising in you right now? What are you noticing? What feels louder than usual, or harder to ignore?
Sometimes our shadows reveal themselves through big emotional moments. But often, they speak in smaller ways: avoidance, resentment, exhaustion, longing, envy, restlessness, or the quiet ache of knowing something is no longer aligned.
A good clue into your shadow is to notice what irritates you. Where do you feel annoyed or extra frustrated right now? What is getting under your skin? Is there something deeper this feeling is trying to show you?
This does not mean every difficult feeling needs to become a project. It simply means your inner life is speaking. And this eclipse invites you to listen.
The solar eclipse is not only about what is hidden. It is also about what is ready to be revealed.
This late summer solar eclipse is about letting yourself shine, so you can transform and start a new chapter more aligned with your soul. That does not have to mean a dramatic reinvention. It may be much quieter than that.
Maybe you’re asking for more honesty in one area of your life. Maybe you are ready to stop performing a version of yourself that feels too small. Maybe something you have been carrying is becoming too heavy to keep pretending it is fine. Maybe an old pattern, habit, or way of operating has shown you all it can teach you. Maybe the mask is beginning to loosen.
During the eclipse, darkness falls. The part of us that is usually visible — the self we show the world, the self that functions and manages and keeps things together — is briefly obscured. And in that shadowed pause, something deeper can be felt: your inner light, the true self beneath the noise.
This is not about forcing yourself to become more authentic overnight. It is about noticing where you are being invited back into alignment.
Where does your life feel out of alignment right now? Where are you ready to be more honest with yourself? What part of you is asking to come forward?
Every beginning also asks for a release.
That is one reason eclipse energy can feel intense. Not because it is here to punish us, but because it can make it harder to ignore what is already shifting.
During an eclipse, shadows emerge so we can see what needs releasing: old patterns, old stories, old habits, old ways of protecting ourselves that once made sense, but no longer support who we are becoming.
And because this eclipse arrives in late summer, the question becomes even more seasonal: What has grown this year that you are ready to carry forward? And what has run its course?
The first harvest has already invited us to notice what has been forming. But harvest is never only about gathering. It is also about discernment. We begin to see what is nourishing, what is ready, what still needs care, and what will not come with us into the next season.
This solar eclipse may not give you all the answers. But it may show you the next honest thing.
You do not need to do anything dramatic for this eclipse. You do not need to make a huge decision, force a breakthrough, or understand everything immediately. In fact, this may be a better time for quiet attention than decisive action.
Let the eclipse be a sacred pause before the harvest.
Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Light a candle if you would like, or simply close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Let this be your way of saying: This moment matters. I’m here for it.
Use these prompts as a gentle way to work with the solar eclipse. You do not need perfect answers. Let your responses be honest, unfinished, and alive.
If you would like to close your reflection with a simple act, write down one word or phrase that captures what you are ready to grow into. Fold it up and place it somewhere meaningful — on your altar, in your journal, under your pillow, or somewhere you will come across it again.
Let it be a quiet seed of something new beginning.
You do not have to know how it will grow. You do not have to understand the whole path yet.
This is the work right now: to honor what is beginning in the dark, to listen for what is trying to emerge, and to trust that transformation can begin long before you can fully see it.
Late summer reminds us that growth does not always arrive as certainty. Sometimes it begins as a subtle shift. A shadowed knowing. A quiet return to yourself.
And beneath the surface, something sacred may already be taking root.
If there is one message this eclipse carries, it is this:
You do not need to become someone new. You only need to recognize who you have become.
The growth of summer has already been happening. The lessons have already been unfolding. The seeds have already been planted.
This eclipse offers a brief pause in the brightness — a chance to gather yourself before the season turns. A chance to notice what is ripening, honor your growth, and begin the next chapter with greater intention.
As late summer slowly gives way to harvest season, trust that you do not need to force what comes next.
Nature never rushes the harvest.
Ralston College and Jonathan Pageau Jul 23, 2026 The Ralston College Podcast Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this second lecture from our recent symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, theologian and iconographer Jonathan Pageau asks: Who, or what, does AI serve? By drawing on mythology, scripture, symbolism, and poetry, he argues that the questions raised by AI directly concern human purpose and meaning. Through the stories of Prometheus, the Holy Grail, Moloch, and the Tower of Babel, Pageau unpacks the deepest questions raised by AI, calling on us to recognize what technology reveals about ourselves and the civilization we are building. Recorded at Ralston College in May 2026, this event brought together leading thinkers including Iain McGilchrist, Jonathan Pageau, and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself. If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy The Holy Grail (Arthurian Legend) Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene Scott Alexander’s Meditations on Moloch Allen Ginsberg’s Howl Alfred North Whitehead Simone Weil Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning – Chapters — 00:00:00 – Opening Remarks 00:01:06 – What AI Founders are Saying 00:08:12 – The Holy Grail 00:14:10 – What Ends is Technology Serving? 00:18:52 – AI is not Self-Organizing 00:21:04 – Moloch 00:29:37 – Why Does AI Have a Personality? 00:34:01 – Prometheus 00:40:20 – Closing Remarks: Sacrifice as Preparation 00:43:12 – Will AI Effectively Model the Right Hemisphere of the Brain? 00:45:44 – Should We Be Pessimists or Optimists? 00:49:06 – Can We Learn From Examples of De-escalation? 00:54:45 – Are There Uses of AI That Expand Our Humanity? 00:58:38 – The State of Non-Propositional Knowledge 01:06:04 – Concluding Remarks
(Image from Simon & Schuster)
Humor has quite a lot to do with play . . . The Latin root of “humor” is “umor,” meaning liquid or fluid. Humor is something that flows [and therefore] resembles water itself . . . Another important part of play is a sense of wonder . . . Play offers the leeway to let images, thoughts, and ideas turn things upside down, inside out . . . Play is, I hold, an attitude, not only an activity. (Joan Erickson, “The Importance of Play in Adulthood,” 51-64)
Hasidic tales about in which individuals who felt lost, alone, or abandoned spiritually were able to regain hope and direction through personal guidance conveyed in a dream. Such guidance could be highly specific: a directive to travel to an unfamiliar locale and there wait for an epiphany to break stagnation and reenergize one’s soul. Or the advice could be broad and temporally open-ended.
“In my own notes, I had at first labeled this defense the ‘fear of one’s own greatness’ or the ‘evasion of one’s destiny’ or the ‘running away from one’s own ‘best talents.’ So often we run away from the responsibilities dictated (or rather suggested) by nature, by fate, even sometimes by accident, just as Jonah tried–in vain–to run away from his fate.” (Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 37)
[A]s adults, we likewise forged close friendships with those committed to helping new generations acquire the knowledge, skills, and wisdom necessary for building a better world. In contemporary psychology, this trait is called generativity, first identified by the Danish-Jewish psychologist Erik Erikson in the early 1950s.
Developed through his close association with the quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli in the 1940s to 1950s, Jung suggested that in such occurrences [synchronicities], the very forces of time and space lose their boundaries or become relativistic–that is, causality disappears.
Forming Your Kvittel
Take a sheet of paper and write the names of the following persons if applicable–and they are alive:
Your mother
Your father
Each grandparent
Your spouse (or current spouse if previously married)
Each of your children
Each of your grandchildren
Each of your siblings
Each of your closest friends–romantic or otherwise
Each extended family member to whom you feel close (cousins, aunts, uncles, etc.)
Yourself
Now next to each name, write one sentence on what this person currently needs the most–in your opinion. The need can be material (financial, occupational), emotional-social, health-physical, or spiritual. . . .
Then go about your day’s activities.
Ralston College Jul 21, 2026 The Ralston College Podcast Generously sponsored by the Ben Delo Foundation. In this opening lecture from Ralston College’s symposium, AI and the Battle for the Soul, Dr Iain McGilchrist traces a line of questions concerning the nature of intelligence, embodiment, wisdom, and the soul in an age increasingly defined by mechanistic thinking and the rise of large language models. Drawing on neuroscience, literature, theology, music, and myth, he explores what it means to understand beyond the constraints of reductionist accounts that view the human being as a computational information processor. In this wide-ranging and dynamic talk, he invites us to consider, as deeply as we can, the essence of our humanity. Recorded at Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, this event brought together leading thinkers including Jonathan Pageau and Stephen Wolfram for a day-long engagement with some of the most pressing questions facing technological advancement, the meaning crisis, and ultimately, civilization itself. At 23:34, listen to this music, which was appreciated during the live event by Dr McGilchrist: • J.S. Bach: Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Chris… If you would like to support us in this work, please visit ralston.ac/donate. Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode: E. M. Forster: The Machine Stops Isaiah Berlin Plato David Bohm Ludwig Wittgenstein Gabriel Marcel Homer William Shakespeare: Othello William Ernest Henley: Invictus Nelson Mandela William Wordsworth: Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey Thomas Tallis Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Tomás Luis de Victoria William Byrd Emil Cioran Johann Sebastian Bach Eugene Gendlin George Gaylord Simpson Galileo Galilei Peter Medawar Niels Bohr Joseph Pieper V. S. Ramachandran D. H. Lawrence Laozi: Tao Te Ching George Steiner Martin Heidegger Hannah Arendt John Milton: Paradise Lost Saint Paul: Epistle to the Ephesians Onondaga Nation Yuval Noah Harari Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning – Chapters — 00:00 – Introduction 08:56 – Lecture Begins: What is AI? 13:10 – Propositional Knowledge vs Experiential Knowledge 16:16 – Body vs Soul 19:44 – The Soul 28:07 – The Limitations of Scientific Cognition 32:38 – Wisdom 35:12 – Non-Doing and Surrender 45:00 – Lucifer and 49:49 – Transhumanism 53:23 – Closing Remarks
By Mike Zonta, BB editor (and Google AI)
Me: What did David Bohm say about the the endarkenment?
In his 1980 lecture and writings on “Knowledge as Endarkenment,” the physicist and philosopher David Bohm argued that accumulated human knowledge is frequently an active form of “misenarking” or self-deception. Instead of bringing clarity, our rigid collective thoughts and memory-driven assumptions lock us into cycles of fragmentation, conflict, and psychological blindness. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The Core Idea of Endarkenment
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Jul 25, 2026 James Tunney, LLM, is an Irish barrister who has lectured on legal matters throughout the world. He is a poet, a scholar, and author of The Mystery of the Trapped Light: Mystical Thoughts in the Dark Age of Scientism plus The Mystical Accord: Sutras to Suit Our Times, Lines for Spiritual Evolution. His paintings have been shown in galleries in Scandinavia and London.His website is http://www.jamestunney.com. Here he describes the history of the transhumanist movement, with a particular focus on its development in the 1920s – and a view to understanding both proponents and critics. On the positive side, the movement seeks to enhance the human lifespan and human capacities. On the negative side it sometimes treats humans as machines, perhaps even inferior to machines, or perhaps as cogs in a greater machine – denying conscious sovereignty and spirituality. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He is Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science. (Recorded on January 30, 2021)
From its earliest days, America served as an arena for the revolutions in alternative spirituality that eventually swept the globe. Esoteric philosophies and personas – from Freemasonry to Spiritualism, from Madame H. P. Blavatsky to Edgar Cayce – dramatically altered the nation’s culture, politics, and religion. Yet the mystical roots of our identity are often ignored or overlooked.
Distilled Spirits blends the stories of three men – Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, and Bill Wilson – who transformed the twentieth century landscape of spirituality. Huxley, author of Brave New World, ignited a generation that sought enlightenment through psychedelic drugs. Heard, an Anglo-Irish mystic, journeyed to California with Huxley to lay the foundations for the New Age and human potential movements. Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, joined forces with Huxley and Heard to see if LSD could be used to help diehard drunks.
While quantum mechanics, relativity, non-Euclidean geometries, non-Aristotelian logic, and General Semantics have revolutionized our view of the world, the habits of everyday thought remain deeply rooted in the thought patterns and linguistic conventions of the Middle Ages. Through an introduction to E-Prime (English without use of the verb “to be”), the Eight Circuits of the Brain Model, and the labyrinth of Quantum Mechanics’ various views of reality, Quantum Psychology can help your brain improve your perception of yourself and the world.
Image credit: Photo by Dan Bartlett/APOTY25 The brilliant hues of Comet 12P/Pons–Brooks arise as sunlight and solar wind encounter ancient ice and dust. Across millions of kilometres, the universe reminds us that even solitary travellers are shaped by the fields through which they pass. (New Thinking Allowed)
Jeff Schechtman 07/24/26 (whowhatwhy.org)
The AI debate is endless. One writer decided to measure it by asking not how smart the machines are, but how humane they are.
Talking about artificial intelligence has become its own industry. AI will save us or doom us. It will cure cancer or end work. Panels, manifestos, congressional hearings, op-eds without end — and through all of it, the machines keep getting better at talking back, and no one can tell you whether the thing you confided in last night was good for you or not.
Our guest on this week’s WhoWhatWhy podcast, Erika Anderson, has stopped arguing and started measuring.
She is an unlikely person to be grading the machines. Not an engineer. A writer — born on a commune, trained in the personal essay, drawn since childhood to the question philosophers have been chewing on for 3,000 years: What does it mean to be human? That question turns out to be the whole ballgame now, and she may be better equipped for it than the people writing the code.
What she built is called HumaneBench. It doesn’t measure whether a chatbot is smart. It measures how the chatbot treats you — your attention, your dignity, your relationships with actual human beings. Eight principles, applied to the thing millions of us now talk to at two in the morning.
Is it early? Yes. Is it crude? Anderson would say so herself — she is disarmingly candid in this conversation about where the whole enterprise could break, invoking everything from Sherry Turkle to Jurassic Park to Heisenberg to explain why measuring a living system is harder than it looks. She has even turned the instrument on her own company and published what came back.
In this conversation Anderson takes on the loneliness economy, the business model that profits from your dependency, what happened when OpenAI retired GPT-4 and users reacted as though someone had died, and the question nobody in Silicon Valley wants pinned down: Where does personal responsibility end and corporate accountability begin?
It’s a start. Someone had to go first.
Podcast: https://whowhatwhy.libsyn.com/can-code-have-a-conscience
Full Text Transcript:
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