At 25° Cancer we find A Will-Full Man Is Overshadowed By A Descent Of Superior Power. This is ruled by Libra in a twelve-fold sequence, and we see how spiritual forces respond to the now-integrated personality (from the disparate parts of yesterday) in its positive expression of will. On this day we isolate the energy of the individual who uses his will and imagination in facing any obstacles or issues. He is in receipt of some form of holy spirit, or as Dane Rudhyar puts it the grace or baraka in Sufi philosophy. We might call it simple providence. We are not experienceing success, here in the worldly sense, but a more transcendent form, an endowment of spiritual power. Hey, that’s the best kind.

I should probably explain, at this juncture, how these esoteric images might practically influence one’s astrology. Say you have a particular planet in your birthchart located at 25° Cancer, well that planet might well channel the energy of this very degree point in such a way that is endemic to that planet. For instance Neptune at this point on the wheel might see a dissolution of this energy, or an imaginative expression of this particular power, if not a magical one. Pluto here might suggest a certain transformation on this theme whereby the individual experiences a sense of regeneration or rebirth via some unearthing of this power in his own psychology. And so forth….

Well on to the next image. Hopefully it’s a “talkative” one!

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Pornographic implications aside, with today’s oracle A Woman And Two Men Castaways On A Small Island Of The South Seas, we move from interplay to interdependence. Symbolically the three individuals represent the emotional (woman) intergrating with the mental and the spiritual (men), or so says Dane Rudhyar. I can dig that. Although I am flashing back to those Italian brothers in the film Mediterraneo who together form a love bond with a beautiful Greek island girl. Interestingly, this image is to remain in question, the form of such integration remaining unclear. The symbolism of the South, here, suggests the realm of one’s passions, which is both the setting and the drive of this image. Coming off the yesterday’s scene, ruled by Leo, the sign associated with passion: we now question how passion, as the prime mover, will put the pieces together. For beyond integration, today’s metaphoric scene points to a formulation and overall composition, dynamics of Virgo, the sign that rules today’s symbol in a twelve-fold system.

It is unclear how this threesome will cohese. So long as we follow the honed emotion of our passion, it will forge a perfect union of three parts. Virgo, mutable earth, is associated with the smithy god of the forge, Hephaestus (Greek: Vulcan, from whose name is derived that earthly forge of the volcano). In the symbolic fiery landscape of some volcanic South Sea island, we will find our emotions, mind and spirit falling into composition. Curiously, the myth of Hephaestus is one of being a reluctant member of a threesome, a third wheel: He is the ironic consort of the goddess of love herself, Aphrodite, who is notoriously involved with the ubermasculine god of war, Mars. Again we don’t know how the pieces of this relationship will fall into place, we only know that some three-fold marriage must take place.

We are being asked to work out a modus operandi—we have to make this interdependent relationship work. There will be ground rules, maybe, and certainly much compromise. As regards our own emotions, mind and soul, we all know how these don’t all seemlessly work together; it takes some negotiation within ourselves to get these metaphysical ingredients working as a recipe that serves us on the whole.

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I pretty much decided that whatever the oracle was for today that I would allow it to trigger some pressing thoughts. Interestingly, the Sabian Symbol for today, at 23° Cancer, is The Meeting Of A Literary Society, the objective of which is a critical approach to common factors in our culture and to its psychological problems. Bingo. Just the sort of stuff I’m inspired to tackle. And, as a quick aside, in the application of a twelve-fold sequence, this degree would be ruled by the sign of Leo and the fifth astrological house, that of authority, especially as it is akin to authorship.

Historically, it has been the literary set that has been sensitive and given voice to the dynamics and interplay within society. Poets, essayists, novelists and critics together form a special body, holding up a mirror that reflects, often self-consciously, what we are on about as a collective. In so doing, they take a hand in shaping society as it evolves forward—the fifth house is one of creation, specifically co-creation with god (which this humble writer will assert is the only kind there is). As I’m doing here, the purpose is to outline the significance of what is, and thus to imagine what could be from this point. The literary are, as Rudhyar points out, “barometers and thermostats, reflectors and projectors of as yet unconscious images.” Today’s degree points to our ability to intellectualize, which is a process of combining our social objectivity and our emotional longing for something better. One of the main king-archetypes of Leo is Arthur (author) who tried to build his ideal world (Camelot) via the rather democratic means of the round table. Well, mostly that round table has survived in regards to a literary set, has it not? One thinks of early twentieth-century writers at New York City’s Algonquin.

In yesterday’s image, that sailboat of wishcraft coming in over calm seas, we used the “feminine” (a Moon-ruled Cancerian image) energy to attract to us that to which we aspired; today we use the “masculine” (Sun-ruled Leo image) to establish a creative center to review and reimagine. I will now take my leave of you and spend the day in writing meditation on that score to relieve the pressure I’m feeling, close at hand, from the societal ills as it relates to interplay with others who need schooling in compassion.

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Two days ago we saw a Venetian gondolier serenading—this oracle being under Taurus rule in a twelve-fold sequence. Taurus governs the voice and the sign’s planetary ruler is Venus for which Venice is named. Yesterday that singing evolved into a prima donna opera star on stage, depending upon audience interaction, that two-way street, ruled by Gemini, taking ones wares (talents) to market, in this case, the opera hall. Today’s oracle would be ruled by the sign of Cancer in said twelve-fold sequence. And of course, this premier water sign, at 22° Cancer sees A Young Woman Awaiting A Sailboat. If you have been reading me lately, or Starsky + Cox’s Sextrology over the years, then you know that Cancer is about the power of wishcraft, waiting for ones ship to come in, which, the sign teaches us, happens over calm seas, when the chaos of our projected emotions settle into a natural rhythm, akin to that of the tides.

The sailboat symbolizes a sort of transcendent, soulful joy—our spirit opened to the possibility of our manifesting dreams. However dissatisfaction is the rightful core of this image and this phenomenon. Cancer and the fourth astrological house is about passage, moving from ones experience and environment of origins to the life and world one creates for oneself. It is associated with reaching the age of maturity, but really this dynamic is true at any moment in ones life—we may always aspire to our ever-unfolding dreams. And well we should. Even though we know the inevitability of our experience is physical death, life’s paradoxical nature is nowhere best expressed in our continued desire to aspire. This oracle might depict an imaginative youthful person, but even that is metaphoric: for the fresh outlook we must all maintain if our continuing dreams are to come true.

So don’t fight your dissatisfaction, let it fuel the winds of change that will bring that sailboat your way. I have to say that I am at a major turning point. Even though I believe in my heart that so much of what I’m doing is selfless and designed to make my tiny corner of the world a better place, I have to admit that it doesn’t seem to be working, let alone appreciated. I believed in giving myself over, in a volunteer capacity, for instance, to non-profit endeavors that this would meet with success. The truth is, it doesn’t seem to be happening. Maybe too many people are locked in that prima donna depicted in yesterday’s image, determined to make their own mark and own profit, that they cant realize there are some of us who aren’t designed that way. That there are those who sacrifice profit and their own time and energy to preserve a way of life or legacies. But it’s like relationships; if you don’t feel any appreciation in a relationship, or indeed detraction, while you are giving and giving, they love and loyalty to that relationship will be bred out of you. It’s nothing you can force to happen. But you have to know when to cut your losses and pack it in. It’s not so much a matter of sink-or-swim, because I’m planning on doing neither. Not all honest and genuine intentions meet with appreciation. It’s important to recognize this and head for the dock of the bay.

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Is it me or are these images waxing dull of late: A Famous Singer Is Proving Her Virtuosity During An Operatic Performance is today’s oracle at 21° Cancer. It just seems so terrestrial. And I find nothing Dane Rudhyar’s interpretation to inspire me either. Bummer. I’m really in the mood for a good speed type on an image that sends me. All we have here is some kind of talented diva giving forth. That said, opera itself is usually pretty mythic in story and scope. It’s something about which I wish I knew more, but that’s my problem.

I was thinking today about how nobody is pure audience anymore. Everyone is a star, legend in their own mind, taking to social media begging: look at me, look at me. Everyone would be prima donna if they could. The thing is it seems nobody is actually comfortable just being a spectator. As if, somehow, the spotlight has become something necessary like light and air. I’ll go see your show if you buy my painting. I would have come to your book launch, but you didn’t kickstart my podcast so…what do you expect?

I am in an admittedly cynical mood. I try not to have such a dim view of my fellow humans; but everyone seems to be fetishizing themselves to such a great degree. One thinks because she’s a downtown artist or he a counterculture poet that s/he is impervious to the sweeping, insidious trappings of this reality-show world wherein one must be fame-ish. Not everyone can stand center stage and perform an aria to perfection. There was a time when not everybody wanted all eyes on them. At this point, I don’t know anybody who is a pure spectator, audience plain and simple.

We have shorter and shorter attention spans, while, at the same time, we expect others to pay more and more attention to us. It was once enough to create in private, if not in isolation. Forget the solo spiritual trip of an artist such as, say, a Salinger; that just wouldn’t fly nowadays. To be fair, in this financially polarized world, who could afford to have a genuine experience as an artist. Accolades, in so much as they translate into cold hard cash, are now necessary evils I suppose. We must court praise in so much as it affords us an ability to express our artistry—unless, that is, we provide an actual service. Audiences are by nature fickle. The mid-career artist has to reinvent. The diva’s talent will fade; one can only hope she socked some assets away somewhere.

Even our minds, which can be the last hold-out of talent, may fail us; and we no longer live in a world we one can retreat to some small cottage upstate or down the coast. Everything has been bought and sold. And when it comes to talent, our standards may have slipped. By the same token, we live in a world of created talent, not of the naturally occuring and emerging. Those who were stars fifty to seventy five years ago were predominantly those who emerged dripping with natural ability, with the off created star or starlet. Now we test would-be stars appeal and market them as we would any product. Because someone can sing, we cast them in lived televised musicals even though they can’t act. Because someone sells records they get clothing lines to market as well. This is predominantly an Anglo-American phenomenon, but it spreads like a disease.

One should express themselves for the joy of doing so, without expectation of being worshipped ubiquitously. You want to sing a song then sing a song. You want to design clothes then design clothes. If you want to do what you say you truly want to do then you’ll do it. But would you do it if you weren’t guaranteed an audience? Would you do it for the love of it or as a devotion or an offering, the expression being reward in itself? There are far more gifted people expressing their talents in obscurity everywhere then the same handful of talents being shoved down our throats in multiple media. Can you be happy without anybody looking? Or do you only truly exist when others are watching?

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Venetian Gondoliers Giving A Serenade is the oracle at Cancer 20°. Rudhyar speaks of Venice as a symbol of social conciousness rising from the unconscious urges of human nature. He likens the city to a lotus growing from and floating on the surface of a lake. Likewise the gondoliers float on the surface of the canals, serenading the female flowers that appear in the windows. In hetero-normative fashion, the male urges and desires are channeled into song, contributing to the overall social tradition, song rising like perfume. The man-made structure of the city rises, nearly organically, from the natural sea, material from the divine, masculine energy from the feminine. The marriage of man and nature is expressed through jubilance of song. It is a song of self. The feminine is the receptive player and also, in some regard, the judge of the beauty of the expression. It is a simple image, self-conatained and self-evident.

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A Priest Performing A Marriage Ceremony is the oracle at 19° Cancer. The keynote is: The ritualization of productive interpersonal relationships. But to my mind it is the priest who is the key player here. He is the sanctified third entity who transcends the polarities being united, or indeed he has the power to unite them. We are seeking to sanctify our experience, not just blindly go about it. That’s all I have today on this one. It’s not really speaking all that loudly. Maybe there’s just not enough complexity in the image to dig into. And frankly I am at a loss to make the connection to Aries in a twelve-fold sequence. It’s just as well. I have a ton of work to do today.

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With a quick meditation, one might easily understand how, at Cancer 18°, the oracle—A Hen Scratching The Ground to Find Nourishment For Her Progeny—would be ruled by Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence. Tha axis signs of Virgo and Pisces both deal with ingesting and gestation, the Virgo virgin about to impregnate herself with that phallic scheaf of grain and Pisces’ embryonic association with the womb-tomb, opposite facing fish signifying the two way roundabout of life and death; but also, as the figure of the womb, we see its natural filtration system, the fish pointing to nutrient and detritus, in with the former out with the latter. We are at that primal metaphorical Pisces, primordial soup-to-nuts place where the running question whether chicken or egg is perpetually being asked. Human existence is at its most basic, here, at bare bones, the ground dry and dusty, yielding but few of those germinated seeds we spoke pf yesterday. They would do, would they not? But wait, those were nutritious nuggets of certain enlightenment. I suppose we now find them scattered to the wind, whereupon we might scarcely dine. What’s up with that: the chicken begins the process of assimilating life, feeding her progeny, other chicken-egg paradoxes.

Our revelations are as germinated seeds, some of which take root only to be immediately plucked up for their nourishment. That’s life. And speaking metaphorically, a seeds that you have germinated is, say, a new book or a new painting or a new piece of music or a new product or a new project or a new deal or whatever, it immediately becomes fodder for the fade away. But never fear, there is suddenly a giant chicken that will gobble up, and feed others upon such tender morsels you’ve brought to light. Even those you think you didn’t. The cosmic farmyard is where everything ends up, nothing is wasted. All we create for public consumption is being constantly digested, again, by this damn giant chicken. Pisces is akin to it: Chicken or egg? Womb and Tomb? Alpha Omega. Simultaneaity. The moment you create something the world chicken starts scratching at it and reingesting. And like the chicken, dear reader,  you scratch and save and scratch others backs and they yours. You rifle through the debris and the discarded, elements of the Pisces 12th astrological house,  la poubelle of the Zodiac, ruling all that, and whom, is discarded and disenfranchised, cast to the elements.

This oracle shows us where everything has been left and scattered and where the process of recylcling now begins, most fitting for Pisces the last sign of the zodiac. Let us see what we find tomorrow when we turn the wheel and begin once again.

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What happens when we receive certain revelation is that a seed is planted. At Cancer 17° we explore The Unfoldment of Multilevel Potentialities Issuing From An Original Germ, the keynote of which is the urge to actualize our birth potential. Not surprisingly, this oracle is ruled by Aquarius in a twelve-fold sequence, the sign associated with evolution, revolution and rebirth. The Waterbearer, whether the Biblical John the Baptist or the classic Hebe or Ganymede, who poured out the immortalizing nectar of the gods, embodies the emergence of new (spiritual, divine) life within us in our present state. Such should be as simple a process as germination. When I think of unfolding I think of the lotus; unfolding is a word one often hears too, in the vernacular of the Unitarian Universalists, stemming back to the American Transcendentalists.

Dane Rudhyar says, “the seed becomes the germ, just as the Tibetan student meditating silently and peacefully on the Mandala is followed by the Christian Crusader.” I understand this until the Christian bit. I think dear Dane is trying to illustrate action, in the form of the crusader, deriving from meditation; but we don’t need it and I think it’s the wrong metaphor. Unfolding isn’t the action of the crusader. Unfolding isn’t outward as he would have us think. Unfolding is still an inner process of becoming, the full expression of our being, that emanates from the same core as was struck by the meditation. An unisolatable core expressing the inexplicable. Meditation removes the obstacles, the impediments to our full unfolding. In real terms it right-sizes the molehills we make into mountains—which casts said mountains, whereupon we receive our revelation, in a whole new light. Indeed we speak of the via negativa, the negative way via which we come to revelation and change. Personally, I think it can be a pretty fun way to get there, battle scars not withstanding.

But here we are, we’ve gone to the mountain, we’ve meditated on our mandala, and something took hold in us. We asked for it. Now what? We become a different being. Aquarius works its revolutionary/evolutionary magic in us and we begin to unfold. The trick now is to do so in no half measures but the full ballerina flower petals opening display. What are we waiting for? Why not become our full potential, why not give it our all, why not achieve a certain enlightenment in this life time. We don’t make it happen, this isn’t action as Rudhyar would have us believe. Aquarius is a fixed sign. We can’t move the germ from the place it’s fixed, crucified, in the soil. We have to dig in to unfold fully, lotus-like. The via negativa may have provided us some wild times and anecdotes but also hard knocks and home truths. It wasn’t easy to climb that mountain—we had slips; and others might have used our fallen bodies as stepping stones; we might have played the role of sherpa, carrying someone’s purse, playing second fiddle to rampant egos while we considered ourselves humble, while in fact we were playing the patsy. Revelation. Screw this shit. I’m a flower, bitch. I’m a lotus. I’m unfolding. Give me room.

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As we move from a Sagittarian-ruled image to what would be a Capricorn-governed one, we today, at Cancer 16°, find A Man Studying A Mandala In Front of Him With The Help Of A Very Ancient Book. A mandala gives symbolic form to what abundance and multiplicity one might have perceived in meditation, so in this way it combines the energy of the two previous days. The energy of the sign of Capricorn is conservative and preservative, the Capri-corn (goat horn) contains the plenty we perceived at yesterday’s banquet into what is known as the Cornucopeia, the container of the copious. And if here bounty refers to the vastness of all existence, the mandala seeks to formalize, concentrate and conform the vast multiplicity and complexity of the All of eternal existence into a perceivable form upon which one might continue to meditate. Here we seek to find footing, like the sure-footed goat, and to stabilize ourselves within the cosmic enormity. The mandala comprises the consolidation of such an effort. It’s the basic blueprint of the infinite.

The Zodiac itself is a mandala and a most perfect one to my mind. Though not purely geometric as eastern versions are, it is figurative in its imagery associating more readily in the human mind with myth and archetype for which the various animals and humans and objects stand. It might be regarded as a Fisher Price type pictograph as compared with the elaborate geometric patterns espoused in the east and yet I find it no less powerful or, as I say, perfect as it seems to encompass every thought, action, emotion, sense and the very nature and sequence of all things earthly and celestial as they relate one to another. Which of course is the purpose of astrology as well as the point of any mandala, to provide a formal link between the earthly and the cosmic experience. Of course the organization of the zodiac is geometric, a circle divided into twelve equal slices of celestial pie, the energies of each giving over to the next round and round, spiraling upward infinitely. It has a lot more complexity than, say the symbol of the cross which speaks to man being at a crux, or crossroads of earthly and spiritual life, which may be true; but that is just one of so very many symbolic meanings that arise from something like a true mandala which is an elaborate symbol system, again, something of a blue print telling us how cosmic nature functions, and we in it.

I think certain art functions as mandalas. Mondrian and Kandinsky come to mind in their each unique but allied visions of distilling thought-forms into points and lines and planes. Of course Kandinsky wrote a book entitled Point and Line to Plane, and also Concerning the Spirituality in Art. If Kandinsky were to write a book about the Zodiac he might have called it Line and Point to Plane because the signs of the Zodiac in turn are cardinal, fixed and mutable, repeated four times. Cardinal translates to a line, moving, directional and initiatory, fixed of course translates to a point, and the mutable signs are indeed planes in that provide a field, on which the preceding energies of the cardinal and fixed signs are negotiated.

Mandalas seek to formalize the infinite which would seem an impossible task and yet the complexity of the mandala does manage, on the earthly plane, to represent that vastness, in and of itself, while it creates a portal as well to mind-blowing eternity, revelation. The cardinal-earth sign of Capricorn is symbolized by a mountain, which the goat is best at climbing: the mountain is a vast astounding structure which provides a seat upon which one can receive revelation. That is for which one goes to the mountain, in the metaphoric sense—Sinai for instance. It is also the seat of divinity, immortality—Olympus, Shangri-La. But I have a more ready example of the notion of mandala at work in every day life…

…it’s called your every day life. Meaning, every day we create structure; every day we try to systemize our existence, whether in the putting together of pressing projects or in the management of our household or business, in the formalization of our relationships or the acquisition of knowledg through learning, in any creative venture, in any anything, really. So what is the stuff of life but the formal organization of the mysterious animation that is us and life itself? Is the multiplicity of organisms, or the system of just one organism, not an infinite mandala, the formalization of the spiritual? Are we not all living mandalas, a physical system and network so vast and varied as to be infinite and inexplicable just as is the universe itself? Can we ride that notion? If we do we find that we are more apt to allow things to happen through us than we are to try and make them happen. In any case, that’s my own mantra for summer and beyond ad infinitum.

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