Sagittarius 20°: In an old-fashioned northern village men cut the ice of a frozen pond for use during the summer.

11:02, 12/13/2014, Sagittarius 20°

Jung's The Red Book, p. 133

p. 222     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 260 (SAGITTARIUS 20°): IN AN OLD-FASHIONED NORTHERN VILLAGE MEN CUT THE ICE OF A FROZEN POND FOR USE DURING THE SUMMER.

KEYNOTE: The foresighted use of natural resources to supply future human needs.

At the close of this series of symbols we again see a reference to the relationship between man and nature. Man's ingenuity and foresight make it possible for him to plan for the future in terms of his knowledge of the seasonal rhythm of cold and head and , by implication, of even larger cycles of change. Quiet and relaxation may have to be sacrificed, and some hardships endured, in order that another type of problem, which may involve survival through proper feeding, may be met at some later time

This is the fifth and last phase in the fifty-second section of the cycle. It stresses the value of actively planning for future need, and of foresight based on the knowledge of cyclic processes. Keywords: ASSURING SUPPLY.

Girlcapsule's Response:

Last post I introduced Henry Darger into the conversation. Darger followed a holistic creative process and use image and word to more or less consciously process a great traumatic theme that humanity is continually challenged by: the abuse of power, and the temptation to it.

I also introduced the art of another incredibly talented, resourceful, and prolific artist who has also spent many years of his life working as a janitor. This artist, John Ringhofer, is also a musician. A recent album is entitled: As Stowaways in Cabinets of Surf, We Live-out in Our Members a Kind of Rebirth. From a description of the work Ringhofer writes in the third person, saying:

While creating the Stowaways album—not stowaways as in "secret", but stowaways as in "hidden"—Ringhofer was also repeatedly struck by texts in the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures that identify God with water: over water the Spirit moved in the creation story, through water the children of the exodus traveled, in water believers are baptized. This album became a libation, where water serves as a surrogate body for God: a submerged, shadowy image, experienced and known but never pinned down. Stowaways' songs can be playful, like clothes at a laundromat tumbling between wet and dry, and they attempt to get to the bottom of things, or pursue a sense of place, but the location they seek is inside a person—someone to begin with, empty into, and celebrate in the midst of both warm assurance and lingering terror. 

John and I have been friends since we were teenagers. His artistic style has had a strong influence on my own. And it is always mind-blowing to hear him speak about his creative process, as sampled above. John is insightful and articulate as well as masterful at orchestration of intentional rendering in art, music and performance.

It is beautiful to find my own experience paralleling this Stowaways album in that John seems to adopt a symbolic attitude in noticing those things which influence and deepen his own exploration. John lists some of the influences as he worked on this album:

Stowaways LP was partly informed by the connection between water and blood (which is 95% water), Brownian motion, the moon's relationship with the tides, Charles Ives's Fourth Symphony, the mechanics of caisson engineering, Bruce Nauman's 1960s process-advertising post-minimal artwork, the parallels between Lewis & Clark's Corps of Discovery expedition and the Apollo Moon missions, Zamboni machines, biblical influences on Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, The Moles Instinct LP, the seascapes of Winslow Homer, bicycles as an initial step towards the space race, Jacques Cousteau's book The Silent World, the life of 19th century blind traveler James Holman, Big Star's Third/Sister Lover, the Günter Grass novel Cat & Mouse, just-add-water instant food mixes, The Beatles White Album, the north-Pacific gyre, Tarkovsky's film Stalker, writings of Desert Fathers, and the Centigrade scale.

To the right is an image of John's album art from the last post that shows a figure (suspiciously John-like) taking a worm-hole portal short-cut from a hidden stowaway cabinet into another dimension or realm.

There is a link here to my work in that I have also been thinking about the metaphysical intersections of the manifest physical realms and heavenly realms, or realms less locked into physical forms.

I am fascinated by stories such as the Cherokee legend of an invisible world hidden in the mountains that is related in the historical-fiction book Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier based in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As I remember it, beings from this other realm were known to show up with strategies for helping stranded hunters or lost children. When Europeans began driving the indigenous Cherokee out of their lands, the legend told is that out of extreme empathy these benevolent beings invited the local group of Cherokee to cross permanently over into their own realm. They were told they would still have to labor for their survival, but that they would be able to do so in peace and with the help of their new community. The Cherokee tribe was instructed to fast for 7 days as a community in front of a giant face of rock hidden deep in the mountains. On day 7 the rock face would open in a magical way and the tribe would be able to cross together into the more peaceful parallel realm that would become their new home.

I have been allowing my imagination to wonder over stories like these. I grew up in a culture that spoke also of angelic beings—beings who might appear and disappear just as help was needed. Beings who my parents sang to as they said good night to me. Beings who were supposed to stand guarding me as I slept, and whose job it was to take my soul to God if my body were to die. Humans as a collective have given lots of psychic energy to ideas such as this.

Above is an image of a collection of the stamp-art of the Austrian artist known as Hundertwasser. Hundertwasser became an immediate favorite of mine. His style, as well as that of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Alphonse Mucha, are all beautifully bold in their strong contour lines and vivid colors. These stamp images show Hundertwasser's classic style. Below is an image of one of my favorite pieces called Exodus Into Space. I will claim another wonky-link here to the unfolding of today's response in shades of blue, and strange or familiar heads rising into our awareness, popping in from the trans-dimensional hidden portal, hidden just around the corner.

Hundertwasser's Exodus Into space