At Aquarius 14° we board A Train Entering A Tunnel which symbolizes the ability to short-cut the process of natural evolution by the exercise of will, mental skill and physical self-discipline. If one is inspire by a vision of what is possible to achieve (see the oracle from three days ago) and then organizes the steps necessary (see the oracle of two days ago) to take toward the successful fulfillment of the vision and then find just the right time and climate for beginning the new work (yesterday’s oracle), one can speed the trip of their evolutionary process. I’m almost directly paraphrasing from Dane Rudhyar who says this evolution can happen on either the psychobiological level (that of yoga and other simiar disciplines) or at the social level at which civilization proceeds.

This symbol is ruled by Taurus in a twelve-fold sequence and that sign is packed with super-achievers with tunnel vision—the shadow side of which can be myopia. Indeed, tunnels do fast-track us to our destination, sometimes by any means possible. Not to judge but sometimes certain people will do anything (and step on anyone) to fast-track their desires; whilst this can also send us into a dark place akin to a rabbit hole or labyrinth of their own making. Let’s not forget the myth of the bull/man Minotaur, who lived in the center of a labyrinth, in effect, a prison of his own desires.

Still the positive aspect of this oracle should be accentuated. When you have all the right elements in place, as suggested above, than you might speed through a wormhole, transporting through, and transcending time and space, toward whatever might be so singular a goal that you have blinders on to all other distractions.

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A Barometer.

Yeah that’s all we have to go on for Aquarius 13°, ruled by Aries in a twelve fold sequence. What does a barometer do? Well it gauges the climate, which we can speak of metaphorically. And helps us to plan in advance with actions and activities. Since, in the previous symbols, we have become newly inspired in a fresh direction and took inventory of where we were on the escalator of evolution, both personally, biologically and in terms of our social context—knowing where we stand—I suppose it follows that we should get a read on the external climate to see how to best approach this new direction.

Astrology is itself a barometer, as it let’s us know the changes in cosmic energies just as that instrument of weather allows us to predict what will happen based on changed in air temperature. We’ve seen the problem of having expectations projected out onto our experience or onto other people. Here, instead, we are taking the temperature. We are seeing whether their is any demand for what it is we are thinking to supply with our new directionality.

How fitting this is considering its Groundhog day! The clairvoyant who divined these symbols didn’t know what day they were being assigned to as the date was written on the back of a blank card being held up to her and, to boot, she was blind (as many great seers are). Thus we see that the groundhog is the barometer. And we might personify that instrumentation ourselves. We need to be sensitive to our enviroment, to be sure that it serves our goals; just as we need to know our audience. Glad to say our furry friend this year did not see his shadow. Anyway, it already feels like Spring.

Short and sweet today.

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On A Vast Staircase Stand People Of Different Types, Graduated Upwards is the symbol at Aquarius 12° ruled by Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence. The staircase is likely a spiral one, the upward path of the zodiac itself. The zodiac, spiraling through time, is like a double-helix strand of spiritual DNA. Just as DNA shows physical evolution, had via (Aquarian-ruled) mutations, the Zodiac is a portrayal of how we are spiritual evolving We are all of us on the same path, but we will be found at different points along it. Pisces, is the sign of compassion (which the diversity of Aquarius has given rise to, just as John the Baptist, Waterbearer, paves the way for the Jesus Fish of Pisces). In recognizing our diversity it can breed compassion; and we must especially have compassion for lesser evolved beings whom, in a moment of weakness, we might be temped to lable brutes.

We are all at different points of development.

The egalatarianism of Aquarius must be tempered by the Pisces notion that heirarchy of levels is a fact of nature. And, as far as we humans go, it is important to know on which step of the stair we stand. One way or another. We might consider that some of us fancy ourselves more evolved than we actually are; while others squander their gifts and pollute themselves and bring themselves down. Either way we are not honoring our divine place in the heirarchy. The rainbow of Aquarius, Salome’s dance of seven veils, are all invitations to ascend, ascend, ascend. And we can do so. But, still, it is important to know where we are.

(I suddenly flash to a dream I had last night where I climbed thousands of tiny stairs to reach a great height; but when it came to to descend vertigo got the better of me and I couldn’t go down. It was very similar to climing a ladder to a great height which is far easier, looking up, than it is to then swing one’s body back over that same ladder for the descent. Not sure what that means but I’m sure some analyst out there will tell me.)

We should indeed look up for inspiration and shining (stars) examples to emulate; but at the same time we might help human beings below us to likewise rise up and reach a next level. The ones who will slip and slide and trip, stumble and fall are those who take access pride in the heights to which they’ve ascended and do no reaching out behind them. This is the give-and-take of spiritual evolution, symbolized by the opposite facing fish of Pisces, one pointing up and one pointing down, like a double-mudra, one hand facing up and one down. Beside our spiritual evolution, individual and collective, and the “progression of the biological species”, we are also speaking on a socio-cultural level of evolution here as well.

Yes we might experience revelation that points us in a direction, but even (especially!) that revelation is fleeting. We might have had a momentary rise in our conscious experience, but when we “come down” from that epiphany, we realize that we must go through our paces, reaching higher and higher consiousness, step by step. We get that glimpse which is incredibly inspiring, but then the real work begins. Of course the Zodiac itself is an outlining of a system of that never ending rising in conscious evolution. It is in fact “the original twelve-step program.” The Zodiac embodies the natural progression of states of consciousness which, taken together, might add up to a sustainable state of what I like to call practical enlightenment.

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At Aquarius 11°, ruled by that sign in a twelve-fold sequence, we come to the following Sabian symbol: During A Silent Hour A Man Receives A New Inspiration Which May Change His Life. The receipt of “new inspiration” is the exact kind of revelation that is associated with Aquarius, bent on ushering in a new personal age. We will have (hopefully) successfully come to terms with the gap between our former (popular) incarnation and any kind of slump or downslide we perceived ourself in—that slide should have taken us down into the inner life of our selfhood from whence we might derive said inspiration—the so-called “silent hour.” And it works the other way too, we might not receive inspiration unless we take the time out, detaching from our experience.

The previous image might have suggested a dark night of the soul where we might have lamented and, indeed, needed to grieve the past to come to terms with where we are in the present. Dane Rudhyar says that “what is implied here is the essential value of keeping open to the descent of spiritual or Soul forces, especially when a new period of individual activity is about to begin.” This is a perfect iteration of what those descending goddesses of the Aquarian experience—Eos, Iris, Hebe—or their literate counterparts, Tennessee Williams’ Stella, Dickens’ Estelle (though ironically in this case) provide. And we see Aquarian women playing this role in life, even as talk show hosts like Ellen and Oprah arguably providing upliftment. One might make the case that Eos, Iris and Hebe were on some level seeking attention from mortals that they didn’t quite receive from their divine superior on Olympus. That they were going where the love is.

But let us circle back to the inspiration. Those goddesses might represent divine intervention but of an internal nature. Indeed creative power and inspiration comes from within. And we will come up short of we depend mainly on outer circumstances and sources and, especially on what was traditionally outwardly inspiring (whether in our personal experience or on a societal, collectedly formulated, level), as such well-springs naturally run dry. Our inner power is nonetheless transcendent. And we can’t tap it as much as we must allow it to flow into our brain consciousness. To do that we need a transition, a period of stepping away, so that we can be open to receive. We are being reborn in a new direction, the result of the water that the Waterbearer is bearing.

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At 10° Aquarius we encounter A Man Who Had For A Time Become The Embodiment Of A Popular Ideal Is Made To Realize That As A Person He Is Not This Ideal. Bummer. This symbol is ruled by Capricorn in a 12-fold sequence which can portray a backsliding, dissident energy, just as it expresses a stickler, throwback one. Saturn rules Capricorn and that planet’s namesake god is a deposed figure who used to rule a golden age, no longer doing so. Capricorn men in particular can be a bit been-there-done-that, jaded, even dour and dejected. Meanwhile the sign of Aquarius, which boasts many a guru gone bad, can take that fixed-air status of the sign (an inalienable ideal) and personify it only to realize that human imperfection will see one fall short of sustaining said ideal.

This holds true in all our perceptions. Who among us has projected our notions about others onto them, expecting them to live up to the ideal (that flag we saw flying in the previous symbol), not taking into account their all-too-human natures. If someone ever puts me on a pedestal, I for one will be sure to knock down that expectation, for better or for worse. And typically I have a hard time with individuals who would have you identify them with some image or high principle. Right away I pull out a pin and start to bust their balloons.

People do this sort of thing, especially, in love where they expect an individual to fill a void in their lives. In Tarot, the Star card depicts the water bearer—a star is the perfect expression of the sign’s fixed-air signature. And so we have seen the female archetype of the stellar (but descending) goddess in such characters as Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire and Estelle in Great Expectations. Great Expectations indeed; whether of others or of ourselves—this is where the disconnect between who we are and whom we are meant to be becomes more gappy. The star on the big screen isn’t what is projected.

This degree in astrology might point to a potential to experience a high point of popularity that will have a shelf life with which to be reckoned. This is very much a theme of our male Capricorn chapter in Sextrology called The Stickler. Capricorn, like his archetypal god, Saturn, is typically wistful for a time in the past; yes, it might be some golden age in which he didn’t even live; but it will also apply to a period of his own young life. Golden years, Go-oh-old, wah wah wah. Capricorn David Bowie knew what we were talking about. As did J.D. Salinger’s young characters all of whom had problems with modern life and the phoniness it presented.

On the subject of one’s own fleeting popularity, it has the same pattern as trauma. It isn’t about the golden era of one’s ubiquitous celebrity, nor is about the downpoint or fall that one might be experiencing in the present; rather it is how one negotiates the gap between those two experiences. Fame, popularity, like all tangible terrestrial things, are ephemeral and the understanding of that should direct us toward putting our faith in that which might be eternal. In simpler, earthier terms, what can we learn about ourselves and our character, what is the takeaway, from a period of popularity after that spate has ended. We must reevaluate ourselves. We must justify the difference between who we are and the archetype we projected which, really, might just be an element of self, a most popular one, captured in the wax like those figures in the Sabian symbol from two days hence.

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A Flag Is Seen Turning Into An Eagle at Aquarius 9°. The first thing that comes to mind is the myth of Ganymede, an Aquarian archetype, the male cup bearer to the gods. He was raped by Zeus who took his totem form of Eagle, swooping down to pick up this beauiful boy then installing him on Olympus, replacing his own daughter, Hebe, in the job of cup bearer. This sign is ruled by Sagittarius in a twelve-fold sequence and it is quite similar to the symbol at 12° Sagittarius, where a chanticleer also turned into an eagle. Unlike the crowing cock, the flag is an inanimate symbol, and its transformation into an eagle expresses the vitalization of a symbol into a power to be reckoned with. After the previous symbol of wax figures, we have moved beyond the representation of new archetypes to merely inspire us; now the symbol takes life and flight. I don’t know about you but I’m just about ready for this sort of thing to happen.

Robert Rauschenberg’s “Canyon” is a reinterpretation of Rembrandt’s “Rape of Ganymede, the pillow being a buttocks, which is that canyon

Aquarius is the sign of the freak flag and letting it fly. We all have a symbol standard to wave, some auspice under which we are an expression of new order. Freedom and expansion are keynotes of Sagittarius, too. Indeed no two signs in the zodiac are so outré, and the main archetype of Sadge is Jupiter/Zeus himself. Perhaps the myth of Ganymede is about embracing a bit of Aquarian diversity in oneself—the sign rules same sex along with all other so-called deviations from and mutations on the norm. It feels like more than a coincidence that the rainbow flag is an emblem here when Iris, goddess of the rainbow, is one of the sign’s key female archetypes as well. As a rule, the Aquarian male includes many a fit and lucious lad, many gymnasts and swimmers being born under the sign. The replacement of Hebe by Ganymede also expresses a changing of the guard, a new era, and perhaps one with a little shock value. What we stand for (the flag) spreads its wings and soars to new heights, elevating our own consciousness and that of those around us. We not only have a new standard of value, we are acting on it. “The seer becomes the doer,” says Dane Rudhyar, Sabian specialist, who tages this symbol “Acting Out.” If only he knew the multiple entendres that now carries.

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I fell of the Blague wagon again, oh no! Well it has been a busy couple of days. Fun, rewarding days. But I’ve been burning the two ended candle and now I’m in bed catching up. So at Aquarius 8° we have Beautifully Gowned Wax Figures On Display and it’s meant to inspire us. No really. These figures are “exemplars”, representatives of the archetypes of a new culture. Of course what sign other than Scorpio would rule a spooky symbol with wax-works. We are being shown new forms and ways of social interaction. The figures are impersonal, very fitting for the detached sign of Aquarius. The figures are heralds of a new order, just as the archetypes of Aquarius, like Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, also brings that same good news. That’s all I’m going to say about this. It’s not a deep symbol.

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The sign of Aquarius, ruled by Uranus, is all about mutation as has been expressed here. Today, the oracle is A Child Is Seen Being Born Out Of An Egg, which points to the emergence of new mutations according to the great rhythms of the cosmos. As Dane Rudhyar, scholar of all things Sabian, has to say: the ancient symbol of the Cosmic Egg out of which a new universe may be born has resonance on many levels. We are being shown a new type of human who is free from the bounds of the past. He is the product of evolution, a mutant. Aren’t we all? He is born of the creative spirit that emanates from the cosmos, not from the ancestral past, as we saw in the Leo-ruled symbol. No, this symbol is ruled by Libra, the inanimate sign of abstraction. And as many a Libra person knows, they don’t feel quite like those who sired them. The legend of “the oaf” is associated with Libra. The oaf is an abstraction, not a real human baby, but a thing put in the cradle as a replacement for a real baby, usually stolen by witches.

The air signs of Libra and Aquarius combine together to make something new and improved. The baby is born direct from the primordial soup of stardust, a child of the (air) cosmos, as opposed to a child flesh and blood earth babe. Here we see the signaling of a new age, and there are special powers of consciousness no doubt afforded to those with this astrological degree pinpointed by planetary placement in their chart. This is the mark of someone who owes nothing to the past, either by nature or nurture. Aquarius is a naturally detached sign, distant, a nod to its fixed-air assignation (like a distant star, opposite of the sign of Leo with it’s near Sun); Libra is etheric, cardinal-air energy, which translates to light, the speed of which, one believes, cannot be exceeded; it points to a certain order and perfection, it’s archetype being the god of light, Apollo. Now, that god, for all his power, was not beloved of god Zeus; just as Lucifer (light bringer) is not beloved of the Judeo-Christian god. Libras, for all their goodness, tend to be villified because they pose a challenge and fear of change via illumination. And light can be blinding and cast a dark shadow. (a note on the title: John Lennon is/was a Libra)

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Following the sign of Leo, the Sun King, is that of Virgo, the Everyman and Alchemist. Virgo is the mutable-earth sign whose archetype is the potter, smithy god of alchemy Hephaestus (who might be the inspiration for Dr. Faustus). Virgo rules the symbol at Aquarius 6° in a twelve fold sequence: A Masked Figure Performs Ritualistic Acts In A Mystery Play, ritual being a hallmark of Virgo’s astrological 6th house. The keynote of this oracle is the individual’s involvement in long-established patterns of activity aiming at the release of collective power. What white witch among us doesn’t know the strength in that? Hephaestus, like Prometheus, was all about empowering humans. And the great mysteries, like the Eluesian brand, were all about imparting some divine knowledge to mere mortals. Adepts were keen on making deeper realities of planetary and universal life available to the human crowd; and they wore masks while performing their rituals (theater and religious rites being one and the same) so that initiates would deem them to be embodiments of transpersonal forces, not just their weird neighbor. It’s a taste of the occult, but what Sunday mass isn’t. Sorry so short. But you’ll get over it.

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Post the previous image of processing individuation against a civilization fraught with dangers and its trumped up inhabitants, it is the spiritual duty of those who do tap the reservoir of spiritual forces to use these energies for healing less-fortunates. So we heal both what physically ails us and others while making whole all that is in the process of pretending or becoming through the focusing our self-discipline, purity of motive and faith in divine order of said spiritual energy; and we arrive at a Leo-ruled Aquarian oracle: A Council Of Ancestors Is Seen Implementing The Efforts Of A Young Leader. And you can’t get any more Leo than that, as the sign boasts such young archetypes as Arthur and David and any other proverbial Sun-King—Shakespear’s Prince Hal cum King Henry and even Tom Sawyer, if you see the character, by extension. Here we see: the root foundation of past performances which power and sustain whatever decision is made in a crisis by an individual.

At 5° Leo, we entertain the energy of the whole (Leo and the Sun whose perfect-circle symbol represents wholeness, where as the previous Cancer and Moon rulership shows a waxing toward said wholeness via the crescent shaped symbol) of all mankind, from the past to the present, stands behind any individual effort. Here we call upon our ancestors as must any tribal king, especially in times of critical decision-making. The missionaries of the adobe image several oracles back were fueled by their saints who likewise brought good news to heathens, creating early Christendom. We are all dependent on the strength of our ancestral achievement—just ask Jaden Pinkett-Smith–just as we are subject to the consequence of any ill action on the part of our forebearers. Thus we have either the foundation of our own castle or the prison of inert tradition, disabling our transcendence.

I imagine when this degree is highlighted in our astrology that we should look to our antecedents, if not our ancestors, and rely upon the strength of precedents. This is how we creat laws of the land, is it not? On precedent of past (ancestral) judges having made decisions which now become the basis of our own rule(s) as monarchs of our own making in this world? We have acknowledged our roots and now we must let that root power fuel our future outward growth. Arthur perhaps didn’t truly succeed in the end because his father, Uther Pendragon, wasn’t all that savory. And you know what they say about the sins of the father. I wish more people would delve Trump’s roots. His people were bad, bad, bad. Was the assasination of JFK isolated to his individual actions or was he taken out for a whole host of reasons dating back to his father’s meglomaniacal ways of making hay? We shall never know. All I know is, that if I look to my roots, I’m seriously fucked.

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