Yesterday, with the widow image, we dealt with leftover vestiges of the past (karma) coming to light, being carried over, into a new era—both on the individual and universal levels. Today, at Sagittarius 14° we are confronted with The Great Pyramid And The Sphinx, which are also enigmatic vestiges of the past that have endured from a previous age, into our present, carrying with them mystery and meaning. They are ruled by the sign of Taurus which is strangely fitting. You see an “age” lasts about two thousand and some odd years—we roll backwards through the Zodiac due to what is called the precession of the equinoxes, so we are leaving the Piscean age and moving into the Aquarian. The Piscean age started around the time of Christ’s birth—the Jesus Fish. Before that was the age of Aries, the Ram, associated with Abraham who sacrificed a sheep in lieu of his son, Isaac. Before that was the age of Taurus, biblically associated with worship of the golden calf, and it was during the Taurean age, around 2560 B.C.E. the date when both the Great Pyramid and Sphinx were meant to have been built.

These structures serve as “quasi-divine Custodians” or “Seed-men” of a previous cycle of existence, harkening to a time of and belief in traditions “based on the perfect knowledge of the archetypal principles and forms which underlie all manifestations of life on this Earth (and by extension…the cosmos)” which, and you know I believe this, are still deeply rooted in our consciousnesses. We have unwitting archetypal knowledge which still forms a foundation upon which we can build solid and valid formulations—what we call “discovery” most times is really uncovery. We possess arcane knowledge and we can still access it if we try, through ancient, traditional methods; and in so doing we can meet the challenges of the future. There is a spiritual, ancestral power which has been preserved and transported over the ages and though it exists in esoteric form—mostly written upon the stars of our subconscious, we can retrieve and utilize it, with proper guidance and patient determination. It is not just karma (of our misdeeds) that is carried with us from incarnation to incarnation; it is also the grand Soul’s wisdom, in which we all share, that finds access in and through us.

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A Widow’s Past Brought To Light at Sagittarius 13°, ruled by the sign of Aries in a twelve-fold sequence, is about “the karma of past actions as it affects opportunities presented by a new cycle.” So right there we are on the money with the first sign of the Zodiac, Aries, begininng a new cycle. We are all widows, metaphorically speaking. We have all been passed out of the past, our former relationship with the world (and many its inhabitants) dead to us. I think on this theme often because I have not always been this perfect being I am now (ahem) hard to believe I know. We all have burned bridges and I find that most of mine were bridges I should never have built in the first place. But I am aware of how karma (which is always about relationships by the way) of the past can impact present opportunities and yet I find it narrows down the field of those who would celebrate as opposed to tolerate you. We have a friend who puts it in these terms: that people are either drains or they’re radiators. I can safely say that 99 and 44/100th % of my karmic impasses of the past were with drains not radiators. Like I often say, if you’re going to have enemies (and you shouldn’t) at least make sure that they’re really bad people. There are many adages that fit here: To be great is to be misunderstood. What other people think about you is none of your business. All under the heading: Nothing is personal. So yes maybe past karma had impacted present opportunities, but let us cast this in a positive light and say: Always in a positive fashion, helping to narrow your vision and make your targets ever more specific so you can hit those marks.

We don’t know what the widow did or didn’t do. All we know that when the “married” phase of her life ended, the ramifications of that life didn’t end there but followed her into a new cycle. Sound familiar. We tend to repeat our patterns because they are our patterns. But we can be conscious of making changes in new phases. That’s what’s key here to me. For it often takes the conclusion of a cycle to really realize what it was all about—hindsight being 20/20 and so forth—I ‘m just filled with aphorisms today. But really, our consciousness can see and absorb and process experience much more clearly in retrospect. While it’s happening it’s often not so easy, because the information that comes in is often mixed. (Information is the provenance of Gemini’s buzzy “mutable air” and, by nature dual.) Yesterday, in the image ruled by Pisces (remember before the discovery of Neptune the sign was ruled by Jupiter) we saw Zeus/Jupiter’s totem eagle soaring to such heights that it could be the first to witness a new dawn and joyously herald it from high above the stresses of life, but the new day (new cycle) mightn’t be as fresh as all that but loaded and weighted and shadowed by unfinished business of the previous day (read: cycle). Dane Rudhyar takes this a step further to extend the metaphor of the day to read not just as a new cycle in an individual life but the new cycle in terms of the ages: “Mankind is ‘the widow,'” he says, “because our soon-to-be-concluded Piscean Age has buried most of the ideals it once revered and proclaimed; yet the New Age will have to deal with many oppressive ghosts.” I think we’re feeling that just about now, humanity, what do you say? Retribution, the marker of this oracle, seems to be at hand. And there are many bad widows out there who are so damned dangerous because, my friends, they’ve got nothing to lose.

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After the return to the body and the powerful wisdom of the organism that is us, we are immediately shifting into the soaring manifestation of our noblest ideals. Really? Already? That’s all I get? One day of shutting my mind off, aided by watching paint dry I mean “The Wiz”. And now, at Sagittarius 12° A Flag Turns Into An Eagle; The Eagle Into A Chanticleer Saluting The Dawn. The Flag, and symbol Eagle, are surely pointing at America whose most noblest characteristics establish it as a cradle of new civilization if not New Age spiritualism. I have to point to yet another polarizing, but skeptically I imagine fleeting, conversation on gun control. The 2nd ammendment was in response to the British banning dissenting colonists from having muskets; it was not intended to insure that paranoid, right-week, extremist nutjob American terrorists could own AK47s so we need to shut that shit down once and for all and repeal the 2nd ammendment. That is my bid for soaring manifestation of noblest ideals.

In addition to being the symbol of America, the eagle is the totem of Zeus, Jupiter, the name sake of the ruling planet of Sagittarius. Just as the archer can hit a target he can barely see, the eagle can soar so high that it is the first to glimpse the dawn. This is why, in this image, he turns into the chanticleer which is just a fancy name for a crowing rooster. In the fable of the Chanticleer, the rooster thought he wasn’t just heralding the dawn but that his crowing brought it about. That’s interesting. Are we, in our noblest visions, mere heralds of the dawning of the new age—note that yesterday I cited Eos, goddess of the dawn as an Aquarian archetype—or are we the creators of it by virtue of our vision? It’s a rhetorical question; don’t expect me ot have all the answers. I can say this: that there is still an a combined ideological-emotional place in my psyche where I can isolate a vision of America as the great hope for humanity akin to what those founding Aquarians Washington and Jefferson, especially had in mind (we will let alone the theory that Jefferson was visited upon and helped by an alchemist, perhaps Saint Germain, which explains the drafting of The Declaration of Independence in a matter of days if not mere hours). There is still that noblest spark of highest principle not to be confused with the forced patriotism that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and that true axis of evil concocted to enter us into a war of profiteering and the eroding of American civil liberties. Those devils are cunning. But they are no match for the angels.

In a way, today’s oracle, ruled by Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence, is about certain “annunciation”; now that just means announcement, something the dawn and the rooster make daily. But the famous annunciation, of course, is that of the angel Gabriel coming unto Mary to announce her conception of the christ child. Again, we have to wonder, if Gabriel wasn’t the agent of the pregancy, not just the herald. Blasphemy I know. But we are speaking metaphorically here. Even the word herald means both messanger but also foregoer. I think we are both creatures and creators of new dawns and the paradox inherent in this oracle is to be milked for all its worth. Sure you can keep sharing your thoughts on social media or you can actually be the change, the dawn. It’s not enough to wish that the gun laws were changed, you have to change them or else you continue to suffer the consequences. We cannot have foresaw the damage the 2nd ammendment would bring two hundred and forty years ago. But we have to accept the reality of what we are living now and we have to be willing to break with the past—it’s not tradition it’s trauma—and live in a new world with new rules for new hope and happiness.

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Given we’re in the sign of psychedelic Sagittarius, I was waiting and hoping for a trippy oracle and here we go: In The Left Section Of An Archaic Temple, A Lamp Burns In a Container Shaped Like A Human Body is the symbol at 11° Sagittarius. It is, in fact, all about getting back into your body after going to far out with your mind, so it’s on theme if not a bit inverted, with what I was expecting. We are being asked to count on the wisdom of our physical selves—I often discuss physical intelligence with clients, reminding them that the body “knows” how to do things like circulate blood and fight infection and digest food, things, which if it were up to our minds to handle would certainly end in ultimate failure. We can know too much. And we can be held hostage by our intellect and concepts of quantatitive value. Yesterday we saw opportunity and abundance. Today we are saying that enough is enough and that food for thought can be super fattening. We must not only decompress at times but actually decondition ourselves. Ruled by Aquarius in a twelve-fold sequence we are looking at the Waterbearer’s effect on our own rejuvenation and necessary rebirthing and individuation. Especially in this day and age when we are so plugged into collective thought, via technology—perhaps we don’t realize how much mass thought is infiltrating. We do need to unplug.

I think of my very niche generation as being caught in something of a balance. Stella is convinced we are a kind of lost generation. We grew up changing television channels manually without so much as an answering machine, going out to play for three hours after school without parents having a clue of your whereabouts or shenanigans; we typed papers on electric typewriters, using white-out or corecto-cartridges to fix our mistakes. I studied abroad and would send my parents postcards or, every once in a while, wait for a telephone booth at a post office. In summer, from the time I was seven, I would just be out somewhere in our tiny New Jersey beach town; it’s like our parents had inherited their ancestors insouciance about child mortality or something. Point is, it was a very anonymous time. The millennials know nothing of this. They grew up pressing buttons and going on scheduled playdates. They have helicopter parents and obsessive gaming addictions, cellphones, earphones, headphones, iphones. How do you unplug from consumerist mass conciousness if you’re part Borg? I guess you become a steampunk, opening a donut or honey or vinegar shop and dressing like you just walked out of the pages of a Jules Verne novel. Luckily I still remember what it was like not being a reliant on quantitative values. Nonconformity was the norm, especially for a happy social self-impelled outcast such as myself.

Of course there is a meaning closer to home than the one I’m attaching to this symbol. The original Greek cupbearer is Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera (Jupiter and Juno); and she basically kept all the gods dosed with nectar that was the source of the eternal youth, if not life. She is, indeed, goddess of youth. Like other Aquarian female archetypes, like Iris, goddess of the rainbow (how Aquarian?) and Eos, goddess of the dawn (likewise), Hebe is romantically linked with a human or, in her case, a demi-god, Heracles (meaning glory of Hera)—it’s best to remember that Hebe, though a goddess in her own right, is also Hera in her maiden aspect. All this high-minded mythological mumbo jumbo to say that this degree of the zodiac is about recuperation and getting in touch with the mortal, bodily aspect of self. The soul (or anima, animus) is wedded to the physical body for better or for worse. And your (overactive) mind is not your friend. It will wear you down to the point of exhaustian and even cellular death. As someone who has been burning the menora from both ends, I’m here to tell you that this symbol couldn’t come at a better time for me personally. And it serves as a reminder to all of us. Depending on what planet you might have at this degree of Sagittarius, and how it is aspected by other planets and so forth, your penchant for recuperation might be great or compromised. I for one am ready to get out of my head and into my body. I have afforded myself that luxury for the next five days especially. With our upcoming show at Joe’s Pub written, now is about embodying the words and getting my voice into some semblance of tunefulness. I spend much of my year producing and promoting other people and their shows. My hope is that our friends and fans will turn out for us this December 20 at Joe’s Pub. We are working hard and presenting an entertaining and enlightening program. My only job is to be rested and to do my best and for that I am thankful for today’s oracular reminder of what is at the core of all happiness and success. Chillability.

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Sagittarius and the 9th astrological house are associated with fortune and opportunity. So it is little wonder that A Theatrical Representation of a Golden-Haired Goddess of Opportunity would make a showing here at 10° of the sign. But read carefully. It isn’t the goddess herself but probably a gawdy theatrical representation of her in what is a societal effort at dramatizing the greatness of what civilization has on offer the most ambitious. Better known as the carrot dangling or the brass ring placed just out of reach. Someone with a planet on this degree in their charts is likely extremely ambitious, but they are likely too materially geared. Likewise one might fight people who work in advertising to have this degree highlighed in their charts for it also deals with goading others to spend their time and energy in the pursuit of said worldly achievement. Sadly, this is what is seen as progress to most people. There is a certain propaganda involved here, forcing others to achieve (but probably for ones own gain). This sort of image shows the shadow side of the Sagittarius experience where more is more.

We often, in speaking with clients, hit home the fact that abundance and quantity aren’t the same thing. Not to say one shouldn’t have money or possessions—these are forms abundance can take. But if there is no true abundance at the core things will always feel empty. I have often said that “prosperity is a sustained emotion”; and that is in keeping with this oracle being ruled by Capricorn in a twelve-fold sequence; because Capricorn is faith in abundance, it is the cornucopeia, the goat horn, the container, of plenty. Capricorn, whose motto is “I use” is anti-waste. It knows when enough is enough. It has boundaries that create reserves and resevoirs, saving the bounty for the longhaul, squandering nothing. The energy of Capricorn is equipped to make the most out of the image in this oracle; for it won’t be fooled by imitation. Capricorn highlights quality over quantity and thus we see hope, and yes faith, in what might on the surface be, well, a superficial image that symbolically drives one to excess. We won’t be fooled by the representation of the golden goddess; nor will we prevent it from reminding us that she does truly exist (in us) as it is we who create our own abundance and opportunity via that sustained emotion of prosperity.

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The symbolism of A Mother Leads Her Small Child Step By Step Up a Steep Stairway, which is today’s oracle, at Sagittarius 9° ruled by Sadge in a twelve-fold sequence, is that of a more evolved being leading those less evolved. That old chestnut. Kidding. Sort of. The thing is that human evolution isn’t possible unless everyone gets on the trip. Individual enlightenment might be had, to some degree, but guaranteed that, if you do achieve it, you’re going to feel compelled to turn others on to your revelations. Otherwise they are pretty meaningless, n’est ce pas? We need the rest of the people to get with the program and solve certain problems we may’ve long sinced aced. Social living isn’t, quite literally, natural. A staircase represents aspiration that doesn’t come naturally to the child who couldn’t have built it. The adults (evolved ones) have built it; so, by rights, it’s their responsiblity to help the spiritual child scale them. A few days back we saw a baby take it’s first steps—that is natural and would occur without any guidance. This is a different story (ha, ha get it?). I think of the staircase much the way I think about the bow and arrow; they represent a cetain leap in cultural evolution. The missile and the skyscraper weren’t far off, really, from those inventions.

Responsiblity to others, though, is what’s central here. I often wonder in what ways human kind were guided by more evolved beings. Yes of course I believe in evolution; and I know how alike we are to the next beings with whom we share the most dna, the chimpanzee. But I look at the differences too and wonder how it is that we have leaped so far ahead of other animals. Is it possible that we did have some kind of special assist? I think of Prometheus and other godlike creatures in mythology whose nature it was to bring the caveman out of darkness by literally pasing him a torch. Light. Enlightenment. By the same token, “the lightbringer” has been demonized. Was Lucifer (whose name means lightbringer) synonymous with Prometheus and just got a bad rap—I mean, it didn’t end well, eternally, for Prometheus either. If I’m not mistaken Prometheus is forever bound and daily has his liver eaten out by an eagle—the eagle, of course, is Zeus’ animal totem for it was he who sentenced Prometheus to this fate. So what’s the deal? Who’s the bad guy here? Zeus or Prometheus? God (for lack of a better name) or Lucifer?

I think I jumped the shark tank. We were talking about mothers and children. Awwwww.

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I don’t know my science all that well but I do believe there are instances when the title of this oracle might ring true. Within The Depths Of The Earth New Elements Are Being Formed is the Sabian Symbol at Sagittarius 8° which is (perfect!) ruled by the underground sign of Scorpio, the 8th sign in the Zodiac. Now, from what we learned in schule, the elements are basically set, all matter containing these elements. Scientists have “created” new elements by loading their nucleii with protons; and sometimes that happens “naturally” due to radiation, but basically the heaviest naturally occuring element is uranium…am I right, geeks? Okay but let’s look at this less literally.

We are talking alchemical change. And I can tell you from experience that this is highly possible—it is in fact the goal of any metaphysician worth his salt to change his or her own (for the better) and help others do likewise. And yes, “getting the lead out” is more than just getting motivated and gaining momentum; it is about removing the obstacles, the impediments, to your being your most golden self. And, trust me on this, most impediments are conditioning you experienced at a very tender age that lodged in your subconsious (realm of Scorpio) and keep you from being who you truly are. So when people ask me what I do for a living, well, I actually don’t tell them that (while that’s mostly what I do do—loving any opportunity to type do do). And here’s why this is not only Scorpio at its root (if you’re a fan you’ll know that was nearly a pun) but so totally Sagittarian. Sagittarius is about shapeshifting. On the shadow side, it does factor into those lizard kings you’ve heard conspiracy theorists (who me?) go on about—Jim Morrison, the self-professed ironical Lizard King was a Sagittarius—but, you see, the Centaur really could take any form. It’s just that being man on top and horse on bottom probably had certain advantages. It might not be easy to make new elements but we can do it!, and at any moment, within ourselves.

Before I knew I was something of a metaphysician, denying all psychic ability in the process, I used to alight on spontaneous meditations, one of which entailed (embracing science!) getting into the head that I was made of matter which was made up of energy. And so I would just get my consciousness set on the purely energetic level of myself. There is no better way to tap into what physically ails you , and exactly where, than this meditation—if I felt a pain or a tear or something amiss in my physicality I would “sew it up” with golden threads. Having been in innumerable car accidents dating back to youth, there is always some point where a bone broke or a ligament tore or where I sustained a wound, requiring gads of stitches. And it’s usually that place that requires some alchemical treatment with my magical gold thread. Then I started taking it a step further. I began “bathing” my entire being in liquid golden light, imagining (as best I could) every single solitary cell in my body being washed with this liquid gold. There is no better spa treatment I can tell you. Try it.

Anyway, all this to talk about how real alchemy can be achieved, through the power of the (Sadge-ruled) higher mind that think-imagines or creatively visualizes or whatever turn of phrase you care to use. Then we can go a step further and make an intention with, say, that golden liquid light, suffusing it with (must be a noble!) purpose that is for the benefit of all beings. In other words if I suffuse the liquid gold with goodness or forgiveness or compassion or even confidence or health or resilience or fortitude, so long as these singular intentions are in the service of all…and the All…then one might find themselves transforming. There are other fun things one can do as well. One can suffuse this creative visualization with beauty; not for vanity sake, but so to be your most beautiful, perfect, spiritual in-and-out Self. Dang if people won’t ask you if you’ve had any work done. For reals.

Sagittarius is the mutable-fire sign, lest we forget. And it is an alchemical fire which purifies and transforms the very substance of man’s inner life. Being conditioned by influences in our youth already did create an alchemical transformation. If a child is left in a crib with no interaction there is no postive transformative, fire for instance. And, as a good deal of our conditioning might have been considered less-than positive, there comes a time when we have to purify ourselves in the fire of our own being. We must rise above the circumstances of our conditioning as we did down to root out those impurities in our alchemy. I believe this is one meaning of the mudra, one had extending up, one hand down, as above so below, even within our own chemistry. Above can mean our own higher mind which is leading the charge in changing our alchemy, and so, with that vision (mine is golden liquid and threads) we meditatively enter our own microcosmic world of swirling energy and see what we can find, loosen, eradicate and free! Love, that Cupid knocking in the previous symbol, will, in one fell swoop, inspire spontaenous alchemical change. When we feel love, we have love to give. Aint nothing wrong with that. It leads to compassion. We are spiritually mutating and indeed speciating along an upward spiral when our alchemy is purified. Sometimes it is purified in the humbling fires of our trials and tribulations. Suffering is inevitable, as Stella (or someone) says, whilst pain is a choice. The point is that our nature can change and we can be the main instrument for that change—it doesn’t have to happen to us via accident of falling madly in love. We can recognize the baser elements within ourselves, can we not, and make those changes accordingly. I know this sounds a bit nuts to some but I find it hard to accept cigarette smokers as being spiritual. We all do a lot of things that aren’t good for us; but somehow that one really takes the cake because there really is nothing about a cigarette that we can argue for positively. There may be benefits to good wine or a good bud. But I am seriously digressing. I should have stopped a few sentences ago. The point is we can be reborn of our own selves. We are self-gestating!

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At Sagittarius 7° Cupid Knocks At The Door Of A Human Heart, stirring up individual longings for romantic love. This oracle is aptly ruled by Libra in a twelve-fold sequence. Libra is ruled by Venus on the etheric astral plane (winged Cupid may signify winged thought, principles, abstracts) and indeed we are dealing here with an ideal love which is always, rather ironically, subjective, despite what might be perceived as an objectivity inherent in principles and ideals. Yes, we might collectively espouse certain beautiful ideas, such as harmony or democracy (both under the larger umbrella of “union” which is the centrifugal energy of Venus which rules Libra) or other such Venusian-Apollonian-Libran attributes; but when we are speaking about the individual heart, there is no consensus. Love is blind, as “seers” often are, in mythology, like Tierisias (who lived as both male and female) a prime archetype of Sagittarius which is third-eye beyond the duality of its so-called opposite sign of Gemini. I hope that wasn’t a lot to throw at you all at once. But Sagittarius is always hinged on looking “at life from both sides, now” and acting accordingly. The human heart, however is not an ordered thing.

Though the love that comes a knocking might be ideal, thus, a theoretical universal; the initiation will be as unique as any given individual. Unlike the cricket match in the previous symbol, we are not looking at some common goal or social value. The heart wants what it wants or, rather, given this image, the heart is stirred to want what it wants, without rhyme or reason. In a sense, all love is narcissistic, based on individual tastes and unconscious motivations. We love what complements each of us as lover. The “ideal” does not exist except in our projection. And why is love knocking not a mellow thing? It seems to breed some sort of emotional chaos. I think “stirring” is an understatement. To boot, nothing like falling in love to make you quit your cricket team. Too many of us chuck our boon companions and activities when love walks in the room. With a game of cricket there are many (ridiculous) rules; it makes quidditch look like dodge ball. (I can still feel the imprint of that bouncy red ball on my face, can you?) But in love, all rules are suspended—bets are off. The “intensity of feeling”, says Dane Rudhyar, is something “no group can arouse.” Apparently he’s never been to Provincetown.

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The development of skill in group situations that challenge collective goals is the keynote of the symbol at Sagittarius 6°: A Game Of Cricket. It’s funny, writing this just flashed me back to a dream I had last night. I can scarcely remember it but I remember Michael Imperioli was in it. We did an event with Michael a few years back—a pilot of a TV show that also included Joey Arias and write Paul Auster. And Michael was talking to Paul about how much he loved playing team sports and what it taught him. Funny how the mind works. Anyway it triggered my recall of the dream. I remember thinking at the time how cool team-sport playing sounded, the way Michael put it; but as a kid I was not a joiner, any athleticism I possessed channeled into individual sports. The most team playing I ever really got was tennis. But while the literal interpretation of this symbol might allude me I can understand it in the abstract, which is where I suspect it mainly “lives.”

Society, which I hear is fun to live in, is based on the interplay between groups, any given group being united by a common goal (if only at brief, given times). Somehow we are “assigned” roles (positions to play) within the group—not always to our liking I will add—and then there are all these rules you have to obey, apparently. Sure, you learn sportsmanshiop and fairness and cooperation, just as you might develop some mad personal skills, but, for someone like me, who is prone to isolation, it sounds slightly nightmare-ish. It’s no surprise this is a Sagittarian symbol—patriarchy and good ol’ boy clubs fall under the signs rulership, the grown-up version of the sign’s opposite “juvenile” Gemini’s rule over boon companions and fraternities and such. On the male side of the archetypal spectrum, Sagittarius is all about acceptance within the ruling male paradigm—the planet ruler is Jupiter, named for the chief god, whose son Dionysus, another sign archetype, is not only the only son he “accepts” as his natural successor, but he also “gave birth” to him from his thigh, the body part ruled by Sagittarius. It’s a very foreign experience to a Libra, metaphorically and metaphysically speaking.

To boot this symbol would be ruled by Virgo in a twelve-fold sequence, which points to the organization and the “well oiled machine” as which a team should function. Was that a sentence? Anyway, let’s face it, cricket is a fucking boring game with too many rules and it’s very wound up and anal and, so too, quite Virgo like. I’m making friends right and left today I’m sure. But I’ve always rebelled against teams and structures and cliques and such. I don’t like to play one part or one position. Shut up. But, seriously, I don’t. As a Libra I might like balance, but I don’t care for rigidity. A Sagittarian is sure not an ordered soul, but they seek to direct all their attention and energy at specific goals. They are archers after all. I do love Sagittarians, for the most part, even though they often feel like a different species from me. I suppose wherever this degree pops up, we might see the need to bend the individual will to that of some collective goal. It’s all about developing group consciousness which, again, makes me very uncomfortable indeed, on nearly every level.

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An Old Owl Sits Alone On The Branch of An Old Tree is the comely oracle at Sagittarius 5°, which would be ruled by Leo in a twelve-fold sequence. The keynote is a poised and wise approach to existence based on a clear perception of unconcious factors and their operation. Who doesn’t love an owl? They’re cute, they have eyes in the front of their head (as we do), they make great spokesmen for selling potato chips. No seriously, there is something special about them as if the whole of the physicality is just one big head. Obviously, toy Furbies were modeled on them, and quite possibly Gremlins, of movie fame. And yet this animal, wise Athena’s totem, would seem the fiercest, as well as the wisest, top of the winged nocturnal food chain, whose keen perception symoblizes an ability to see beyond what is natural or normal. They embody a superperspective. Like Leo’s lion, the owl is typically depicted, in tales and even modern cartoons, as a go-to leader of the wild kingdom, but one who needn’t play on the ground but rather stay aloft above the fray of animal (human) interaction. The owl, with its catl-like eyes, plays mentor and, as we saw with the previous symbol, mentorship is endemic to the sage Sagittarian experience.

The hoot of the owl is the requisite sound effect for any nocturnal setting, itself symbolic for the landscape of the subconcious mind, opposed to that of the oft ego-driven conscious synonymous with the glaring light of day. The owl is endowed with a keen vision that transcends our abilities of perception, like a great flying cat, swooping in on (other) birds and rodents. It has a near 360° perspective, the it turns it’s head, the personification of having gained a full picture. Sagittarius is about the third eye, seeing beyond duality (of its so-called opposite sign of Gemini) to gain a tertiary vision of reality. The self-name Mark Twain, a Sagittarius, means “the point between.” Three points create a circle and, life being cyclical, one might that it is a circular vision that is necessary to completely perceive reality. Our friend Dane Rudhyar slaps the word translucidity on this symbol. I like it.

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