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"This universe of ours, what is it really? Here we are, centres of consciousness, surrounded by a buzzing confusion which we must try to understand. But we are of the selfsame stuff of the universe -- perhaps ultimately a cloud of energy interacting with other clouds of energy -- and on that account we are in the role more of participants than observers. We cannot distance ourselves from our ambient, hold it at arm's length for impartial scrutiny. This fact has been heavily underlined by modern physics since it sets limits to our knowledge. What we experience is not external reality per se but our interaction with it, so that in a very real sense we are constructing our universe from ourselves."
"Astrology is an art, rather than a science or a system of religious beliefs. But what, then, is art? The artist mediates between different dimensions of life. The images, sounds, words and forms which the artist utilises are languages which can communicate the meaningful patterns of levels of reality which would otherwise be incomprehensible or incommunicable to the rational mind. When we are affected by art, it is because the work speaks to us on many levels: intellectual, intuitive, emotional, visceral."
"People who dismiss astrology do so out of either ignorance or rationalism. Rationalists have their place, but their limited assumptions and methods must be kept out of the arts. Interpretation of poem, dream or person requires intuition and divination, not science."
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A Bit of a Bio:
Astro Inquiry is published in Washington State -- beaming out from Vashon Island. When I was 14 years-old, I made the dogged effort to write to as many astrologers in California as I could, seeing which, if any would take me on as a student. I lucked out with my teachers Ivy Goldstein Jacobson and Margaret Latvala, and studied with them through my high school years. A year later I became a member of Llewellyn George’s Educational Astrology organization in Los Angeles. I helped write, edit and publish the group’s quarterly newsletters... continues
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New Moon Watch: Enantiodromia – the Golden Moment
Buddha sat under a tree and explained the truth of impermanence. Alchemical artists drew, etched, carved or painted vivid images to represent that truth.
Eastern philosophy evokes nature to reveal the cycles of change — living life in accordance with flow. But the alchemists of old were crazier and wilder. They knew human beings were complex creatures and depicted our psychic atmosphere in phantasmagorical allegory. Breeze-caressed willow sprigs and geese flying south for the winter didn’t match the nitty-gritty human condition.
People are complicated creatures — a mix of animal instinct and human desire. The alchemists understood this. And so the psychological world was depicted with a tumult of clashing chemistries — trials of burning, freezing, steaming, dissolving and splitting depict the psychic clash or merging of antithetical forces.
The alchemical gold, the reward at the end of the opus — the art or work — is not just a reconnection with one’s harmonized, essential nature (that goose flying to Florida), it is a certain wisdom that only a self-reflecting consciousness comes to understand and embrace. A wisdom that transcends the limitations of duality, of time and space. The result is hard-won, but clear: When we align with the law of impermanence we discover the security of our center. We abide in the present — the ‘one moment’. And that is a golden condition. The natural condition.
It’s good to bring up gold because tomorrow’s New Moon in Leo is all about the soft, precious metal. Interestingly enough, gold is very much what Pluto’s continued grind through Capricorn unearths. You dig into the earth to free the stuff. And nothing digs quite as hard as Pluto, and no sign is earthier. Read more