A Lady Wrapped In A Large Stole of Fux Fur is the Pisces 14° image. The fox is the key element here, symbolically clever, subtle and cunning. It signals any ability to adapt to most conditions and situations. Whereas the sword, yesterday, portrayed the individual will as a conduit for the divine, the fox stole is more of a protective, sheilding image. We are meeting the inclemencies of actual weather but also that of a psychic nature, something to which we open ourselves. This brings us to the Scorpio rulership, in a twelve-fold sequence, of this symbol. Whereas the idealogical sword of the previous Libran oracle speaks to the imposition of the will, here must defend against certain psychic possession, of a vampiric nature, which is the part of the Scorpion estate. That sign is concerned with possession on the energetic level—just as its so-called opposite sign of Taurus is hinged on material possessions. Scorpio wishes to get under your skin. It is subversive and subliminal and it can take a near exorcism to rid oneself of the hold it can have. Scorpion people, as a rule, infiltrate the minds of those around them—it is all about control. And so the initiate seeks to protect herself, at that very vulnerable point of entry around the neck and throat, with some form of animal (instinctual) shield, like that of Athena’s aegis. The true meaning of putting on ones glamour was to activate a psychic shield of sorts, to switch on an impenetrable power. I don’t know about you but I do it all the time.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

An Ancient Sword, Used In Many Battles, Is Displayed In A Museum is the Sabian Symbol at Pisces 13°. It points to a consecrated man, through effectual use of his will, becoming a symbol of courage for those who follow. Fittingly this oracle is ruled by Libra in a twelve-fold sequence as becoming a symbol is what the sign is all about—as the only abstract sign in the Zodiac, the Scales point to equality, balance, harmony and justice—Justice, the Lady of the Scales, weilds the sword of righteousness. It points to willpower being the ultimate weapon and it’s undeviating expression is that by which individual worth is judged.

Yesterday, in the Virgo-ruled Pisces image, we saw new initates to a occult brotherhood being judged for acceptance. Today we get a sense of that which we are judged upon. Those with this degree well aspected in their charts may be willfull in the extreme, meeting inner challenges and conflicts as well as outside adversity. But what is will? In occult terms it doesn’t originate with the individual but it is god, or th divine operating through ones mind. It is the energy of the collective, or the whole, manifested in one fell swoop of your convictions. Your will is the signaling to “the Brotherhood” that you are available as a conduit for the greater good.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It bears repeating that these images weren’t divined in order but blindly (literally) but a blind seer. Yesterday we trekked toward illumination and today we find that, at Pisces 12°, In The Sanctuary Of An Occult Brotherhood, Newly Initiated Members Are Being Examined And Their Character Tested. The gist of this symbol is hinged on the fact that, just because we move in a direction and seek acceptance by a group, we might not find that acceptance to be automatically on offer. We must prove ourselves capable and worthy. We might claim an inherent divine right to do this (yesterday’s symbol is ruled by Leo which governs that internally fixed fire) but we have to demonstrate certain adeptness, that we have utilized that internal fire and allowed it to purify us of ego and other impediments. Today’s image is ruled by Virgo in a twelve-fold sequence, the mutable-earth sign that follows the fixed-fire of Leo. It is associated with the god of the forge, Hephaestus, who was an alchemist and a, rather ironic, god of humility in service to gods and men. That Leo fire might send us on that trek, but the journey should be humbling and cause a change in us, rendering us something different from how we started out, changing our make up as befits Virgo’s humbling mutable-earth status, changing all that we are wrought of if not our material selves.

Leo is all about our ideal selves, being the best we can be—as a fire sign it points to what that ideal is, in spirit. Then we must physically align ourselves via our Virgo natures, changing our routines and habits—under the rulership of Virgo’s sixth house—which must be put in service to that ideal. That is the true nature of Virgo’s motto “I serve”. Are we serving the divine god-monarch within? Virgo, in all its humility, sees us don the habit of novice or initiate, shearing the lion’s mane of Leo pride and ego, shadow sides of that ideal sense. And whether you get theself to a nunnery or monastery (flash back to dream I had last night where I was told that my lifestyle was indeed quite monkish, which isn’t true at this juncture, but probably in some sense, essentially so), or you simply put yourself in service to a spiritual ideal, you will be offering yourself up to some sort of group, whether organized or not. We can’t always seek, we must find, there must come a point where we find welcome in some collective that reflects our inner callings. And having found our place we must prove ourselves able to, and worthy of, fullfilling the (here comes another Virgo word) function associated with it.

If we are seeking we are perhaps lost. If we are found than we might not longer be free, in the individual sense, but an agent, The Vehicle (name of the Virgo man chapter in Sextrology) or The Vessel (name of the Virgo woman chapter in Sextrology) via which the whole of the good might operate through us. But we must be made of certain qualities to qualify for this; we must be humbled in our exaltation, and have undergone an alchemical change to release our expectations of individual power or recognition. We must be, like Hephaestus, a god of the forge, using our divinity to serve common purposes, not least of which, is the enlightenment of all wo/mankind. We must at all times prove our worth in this.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Men Traveling A Narrow Path, Seeking Illumination is just the kind of Sabian Symbol you’d expect in these last hurrahs of our journey around the wheel. It points to the capacity inherent in every individual to seek at whatever cost entrance to a transcendent real of reality. I immediately think of those trekking to Shangri-La. The sign of Pisces, and its twelfth house, does represent the transcent realm of reality, that of Nirvana (of course Kurt Cobain was a Pisces, that band’s in-utero imagery speaking to the womb/tomb nature of that sign. This image symbolizes, according to scholar Dane Rudhyar, “the ancient, eternal path of discipleship—the greatness of man is that he can always be greater; and the belief—deeply rooted in men’s inner nature—that if he fulfills the necessary conditions he can find ‘Elder Brothers’ who have already attained a higher level of consciousness and will transfer their attainment and light to him.” There’s that Brotherhood of Light again. And Rudhyar goes on to explain that it requires a purity of heart, mental awareness, mastery of emotions and spiritual self-motivation.

The pure at heart. This speaks to this being a Leo-ruled image, in a twelve-fold sequence. And, as often happens when we get to a Leo-ruled symbol, we find ourselves on a golden pathway akin to Dorothy in Oz with her companions personifying the metaphysical levels of existence, that story being one we cite, specifically, in the Leo woman chapter of Sextrology. We can always walk this path, we can always go further. The most difficult thing to do, typically, is to take the first step, not because the journey ahead is daunting, but due to the guilt, shame, regret of not having started sooner. It’s easier said than done: that it’s never to late to take to the path; but we have examples of those who have gone before, having lived a life of earthly attachment and delight. So, put on your happy feet and get going.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

An Aviator Pursues His Journey, Flying Through Ground-Obscuring Clouds is the symbol at 10° Pisces (wow only 20 more of these to go I can scarcely believe it). Today we are entertaining man’s ability to develop powers and skills whicy by transcending natural limitations allow him to operate in mental-spiritual realms. That’s a mouth full. Of course flight always signifies some kind of transcendence and spiritual move. But, more literally, we are looking at our ability to enter other realms we weren’t “born” to inhabit, not having wings of our own. That evolved being (the girl with the bugle) who has harnassed his energy (the jockey) now soars as the aviator, no longer even seeing his native “land”. I’m struggling to say anything beyond this very obvious interpretation. Let’s see…

The symbol would be ruled by Cancer in a twelve-fold sequence and the losing sight of land on a journey does speak to that sign’s energy of deliverance. The one who has evolved through mutation is one who will spiritually ascend and achieve certain mastery. The mutation may occur by way of revelation (let’s hope not by radiation). There is nothing that you see around you that didn’t originate in someone’s imagination. Pisces is that pure imaginative state wherein everything is in a state of becoming. The aviator flies via the collective imagination of those who went before. One can be born an aviator into a world of flight. I hope that makes sense. Put it this way: Have you not been weirded out by seeing tiny children, like two-year olds, working a computer? It’s as if they were born with the knowledge created by the machinery that emerged from the imaginations of those who went before. We can soar because others have given us the wings.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A Jockey Spurs His Horse, Intent On Out-Distancing His Rivals is the Sabian Symbol at Pisces 9°. It is about the mobilization of our energy and the skill in the drive for success in any social performance affected by the spirit of competition. Basically it’s about the rat race and the emphasis on mondern society on individual performance and the desire to win. This is ruled by Gemini in a twelve-fold sequence and, maybe I just don’t want to think that hard, but the only correlation that comes to mind is that Gemini guys do tend to be comparatively tiny. And they also like to be winners. The horse symobolizes the feverish release of energy controlled by techinical skill and long practice. Apparently, when this symbol is featured in a person’s chart it points to a need to spur one’s total self toward the speedy attinament of a goal. Ah, okay: Speed. This is a Gemini attribute to, that sign being ruled by quicksilver Mercury named for the fleet messenger god of immediacy, both in time and space. He traveled so fast he was nearly ubiquitous. He was also tiny, locked in perpetual adolescence with the cunning, prankster mind to match. Mercury is also the nimble god of the skillful and dexterous and adroit for whom excess weight is anathema. Likewise when we seek out a goal we must let go of all unnecessary baggage that might prevent us from its achievement. We must be completely geared to said goal. And, okay, here’s another clue to the Gemini rulership: Dane Rudhyar, scholar of these Sabian symbols, tags the keynote for this oracle as: Self-Quickening.

I don’t know about you but this is the exact energy I needed to be presented with today. On the shadow side, that orange OompaLoompa Donald Trump is a Gemini who is outstripping his own rivals. He is, after all, a skilled artist of the deal hell-bent on a single goal. We cannot let that douchebag win by the way.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Some symbols flood me with thoughts. A Girl Blowing A Bugle, at Pisces 8°, is one of those that do. After the emphasis via yesterday’s symbol on trusting to one’s inner guidance system, letting the external world be a landscape of illusory mist surround the cross we (all) bear. Today we see that inner voice sounding off voicing the inner calling—Taurus rules the voice and this symbol in a would-be twelve-fold sequence. Taurus is the premier feminine sign in the zodiac, ruled by Venus/Aphrodite, originally the great sea goddess, also called Mari, associated with the sign of Pisces, as is the biblical Mary whose della robbia blue gown fringed in white is the sea fringed in foam. It is right that the inner voice is feminized, as the girl symbolizes the more biological and psychic elements in our human experience. We could read it as the anima, the soul, calling out to us to break through the illusory boundaries of our outer world and perspective, to heed the urgent trumpeting of that divinity within us seeking direct connection to the collective spirit of the universe.

At the same time, Pisces, the sign that most expresses paradox, the true reality, in its opposite facing fish, is forever hinged on the notion of the divine and the delusional, messiah or mad-wo/man, savior or siren. There would be some who might think that any association of the female with divinity or spirituality would indeed be a siren’s call drawing us to our spiritual death. But we modern mystics and workaday witches know better. And we understand that this oracle is a call to participation in the service of the race, as an evolution crossroads (Dane Rudyar says “crisis” but I think that’s misleading) approaches. We are trumpeting the fact that with each incubation (womb/tomb of Pisces) we emerge from the primoridial soup that much more evolved than the last generation. That is if you’re not a Republican who visably devolves each time you turn on the television. This call of the feminine can read as a battle cry against an oppressive patriarchy, a call home to source that is feminine in our existence.

The feminine is the psychic element, the intuitive power that exists within all of us. And the female archetypes associated with both the sign of Pisces and that of Taurus bear this out, as they both draw on aspects of the triple goddess—the trident of Pisces was originally that, associated with the lily or fleur de lis or shamrock, of the sea goddess, Amphitrite, Aphrodite of the water world. The Fish is an embrionic symbol and the womb/tomb is that of the great goddess mother who, with each generational turn of the wheel, gives birth to a mutant, a being that has evolved along the mutation (of the previous sign of Aquariaus). We are being called to herald our owen evolution and enlightenment. We are the promise of the new age and She is summoning us to our own rebirth.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Now we’re talking. This image could only fall into the sign of Pisces: Illumined By A Shaft Of Light, A Large Cross Lies On Rocks Surrounded By Sea Mist is the Sabian Symbol at 7° Pisces, the sole sign of mutable-water which translates to mist and vapor as will as fog and foam. We touched on this subject in part a few days ago. Those who don’t depend on mass values and traditions but to thine own selves are true will find themselves being crucified in some way shape or form. It’s an inevitable paradox. That which supports them is their own inner fortitude on which a light (from above) will shine. There is direct connection between individual soul spark and the universal soul—what is cut out is the middlemen, or rather they will cut you. As such the individual recognizes himself to be the son or daughter of god. For those acquainted with Aries people, you might not be surprised to learn that that premier sign of the Zodiac rules this image in a twelve-fold sequence.

I know that sounds facetious but the fact is that people of a particular sun sign are the best representatives (personifications) we have of that sign’s energy; and Aries people do indeed embody a sense of entitlement, an unapologetic carte blanche attitude toward life to which they feel free to serve themselves. They can feel special, singled out, ordained, “god’s gift to the world” as a rule. And, to be sure, they tend to embody what might be deemed original purpose more than the rest of us, not so easily put of their essential marks or swayed by the opinions or concerns of others. This is something to be loved and lauded about Aries people and, moreover, that Aries cardinal-fire energy that burns in all of us. Which brings us back to this symbol which says that, even in the midst of external confusion or misunderstanding about you, you must look to your own divine spark.

Dane Rudhyar (an Aries) says this particular oracle is about “Self-Assertion” which couldn’t be more Arian an assignation. It shows us “the supreme worth of a life guided by an inner voice.” It really is an essential paradox because so many of us (Aries people, the least of which) truly do care what others think and say about us; but we must ultimately come to the conclusion that what they think about us really is none of our business. And to be great truly is to be misunderstood. So far it seems to be a lesson we are hitting home here in the sign of Pisces, and why: Because the dissolution energy of this Neptune ruled sign is pointedly directed at the ego; and for what is crucifixion symbolic if not the death of that sticky little wicket that keeps us attached to the swirling minutae of the outer world when the kingdom of god honestly is within.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

A Parade Of Army Officers In Full Dress is the randomly divined Sabian Symbol at Pisces 6°, carrying the connotation of the dedication of human beings to the service of their community, and the assurance that it will be emotionally sustained by the people at large. Surrender and sacrifice are endemic to the Pisces experience (so is fancy dress!) and in this oracle, which is also ruled by the sign of the Fish in a twelve-fold sequence, we not only see this element of sacrifice in the parade of officers but their full regalia will have roused emotions and those same patriotic feelings of surrender to something larger. The officers, of course, have dedicated their lives—they are not new foot soliders—and have lived without such comforts as their devotion has secured for others. What these officer gain in return is support of the masses—probably not a difficult sentiment to rally; the full dress of the officers suggests a long history of a particular culture and a pride in that posterity. The support is automatically triggered by this display. All involved are locked into a shared responsiblity to act according to custom. There is utter solidarity in this image and no second guessing. Total devotion to a cause, even revolutionary action, has deepened into traditional display that, though tried and true over time, still might carry the same spirit as the original revolutionary acts that led to this (any) nation’s freedom. This could not have the same effect without epaulettes and shiny leather boots and ribbons and badges and other fanciful flair that is meant to evoke and move group spirit. I’d be curious to know if individuals with this degree highlighted in their chart were especially patriotic or given to sacrificial service. Time, as with everything, will tell.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Golly I hope my mood has improved since the last post. I really have to say I didn’t expect to feel so fatigured by this process so close to the end—I would have thought myself giddy at the prospect of having eleven months of daily blagues behind me, but frankly I feel a little pissed off. It’s me I know. And maybe it’s a good thing. Perhaps I’m ready to just start talking to you people without having to hang my hat, daily, on these Sabian Symbols. Meanwhile today’s symbol is: A Church Bazaar. And it figures because (in case you haven’t noticed) we’ve been dealing with “commerce” between people these last several days and a church bazaar is yet an other social setting, however there is a backdrop is spiritual, just when I need it most!

There is nothing more usual than a gathering in some church basement—think of how many times in any given week in America alone (and especially) this sort of thing goes down. And yet, it is contextualized within a spiritual framework, such that this banal confluence of individuals has a transcendent aim at its core. The banal meets the beatific. And, as we are in this final sign of Pisces with it’s opposite facing Fish always pointing out the paradoxical nature of all elements of existence, this symbol points to a particular one. What does organized religion do if not replicate, in earthly congregation, what is perceived to be some heaven where we will all stroll around in white robes earning our wings. Church community bleeds beyond the walls of some spired structure and we mightn’t know how much that bond creates a whole in our society if not a sense of holiness. Dane Rudhyar says that organized religion “justifies human behavior by blessing it with a divine Revelation of what is good and valuable.” Fittingly this oracle would be ruled by the sign of revelation, Aquarius, in a twelve-fold sequence.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.