Pisces 06º: A parade of army officers in full dress.

12:52, 02.28.2015, Pisces 09º (late posting)

p. 272     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 336 (PISCES 06º): A PARADE OF ARMY OFFICERS IN FULL DRESS.

KEYNOTE: The dedication of human beings to the service of their community, and the assurance that it will be emotionally sustained by the people at large.

Here we see at work the emotion-rousing appeal of social activities which demand the surrendering by the individual of his personal way of life, his opinions and his comfort. The socializing process is pictured in all its intensity but what is implied even more is the support that the socialized person can expect from the collectivity if he is ready to act and to sacrifice himself for the nation or the group.

This is the first symbol of the sixty-eighth series. It allegorizes the power generated by a totally accepted and enforced collective discipline, and the exaltation and mass response which he who has achieved this self-surrender to a social tradition can expect in return. The Keyword is GROUP-RESPONSIBILITY.

Pisces 05º: A church bazaar.

12:51, 02.28.2015, Pisces 09º (late posting)

p. 271     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 335 (PISCES 05º): A CHURCH BAZAAR.

KEYNOTE: The value of giving a spiritual or transcendent sanction to even to most commonplace interchanges between social persons and individual minds.

This is the last of the five symbols emphasizing the interaction between people constituting a social group, small or large. It brings in the element of religious sanctions. The purpose of any organized religion is primarily to meet the need of giving a more permanent significance to interpersonal relationships within the framework of a particular way of life and culture. It helps to keep the society "whole" by making it "holy"–at least in principle and ideal. It justifies human behavior by blessing it with a divine Revelation of what is good and valuable. It idealizes biological and social needs by ritualizing them.

This ends the sixty-seventh five-fold sequence on a note of RITUALIZED BENEFICENCE. It stresses the possibility of the "Presence of God" in even the most material human activities.

Pisces 04º: Heavy car traffic on a narrow isthmus linking two seashore resorts.

12:50, 02.28.2015, Pisces 09º (late posting)

pp. 270-271     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 334 (PISCES 04º): HEAVY CAR TRAFFIC ON A NARROW ISTHMUS LINKING TWO SEASHORE RESORTS.

KEYNOTE: The mobility and intensity of interchanges which make possible and characterize complex social processes.

Here we see the concept of commerce and social interaction in a new form. What is stressed is the need to establish unceasing dynamic relationships between all aspects and functions of the social life. The more complex the relationships, the more dynamic and restless the society. In this symbol the "isthmus" refers to a geographic situation found near San Diego, California, where these Sabian symbols were produced–also in Florida and elsewhere. A narrow strip of land separates the sea from a lagoon and on this strip, houses are built and roads are constantly filled with moving cars. The proximity of the sea stresses the collective nature of social experiences and of what may appear to be "individual" achievements.

This fourth stage symbol evokes many aspects of what at several levels can be called TRAFFIC. The technique for achieving social results is always based on an interchange of ideas and interplay of activities. Often, however, confusion ensues and traffic jams are ever-present possibilities.

Pisces 03º: Petrified tree trunks lie broken on desert sand.

12:49, 02.28.2015, Pisces 09º (late posting)

p. 270     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 333 (PISCES 03º): PETRIFIED TREE TRUNKS LIE BROKEN ON DESERT SAND.

KEYNOTE: The power to preserve records of their achievements which is inherent in fully matured cultures.

When a vast group of men succeed in building a culture with strong institutions which express themselves in significant symbols and works of art or literature, such an effort of many generations is rarely lost altogether. In one form or another, records of this culture endure or are mysteriously preserved, simply because they reveal the place and function of this particular culture in the long process of unfoldment of the potentialities inherent in archetypal MAN. It is such a concept that has been mythified and popularized in the religious idea of the resurrection of the dead on the Last Day. The symbol of petrified wood in the Arizona desert, however, tells us that the actual preservation of the records is never perfect or total. Only fragments remain, significant enough to reveal the essential archetypal form.

This third symbol of the sixty-seventh five-fold sequence brings the promise of social immortality–i.e. the preservation of the enduring (because archetypally meaningful) factors in whatever man attempts within his culture. A symbol of INDESTRUCTIBILITY. 

Pisces 02º: A squirrel hiding from hunters.

16:06, 02.21.2015, Pisces 02º

pp. 269-270     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 332 (PISCES 02º): A SQUIRREL HIDING FROM HUNTERS.

KEYNOTE: The individual's need both to ensure his future subsistence and to protect himself from aggressive social elements.

The squirrel not only has to hide and store food for the winter, but to be on the lookout for the dangers involved in gathering this food supply. Social processes always cast strong shadows. The individual is never certain of being safe among his fellow-men, once the process of individualization–with its negative aspects, competition, social aggressively and greed–forces the breakdown of the organic tribal state of mankind during the archaic ages.

This second stage symbol contrasts with the first. It warns of the dangers of life in society during an era of exacerbated individualism, when violence is a possibility never to be dismissed. The need for SELF-PROTECTION and caution is ever present.

Girlcapsule's–2¢:

I am feeling drawn into this process in a new way lately–that is to wait a few days and then do a catching-up. I feel the impact is very much more powerful in terms of following a kind of mind-yoga, and actually being able to track the echoes of the various threads that lay themselves out side by side. Like weaving Indra's net with infinite care.

It seems to me that my invitation to this process, entitled "Protean Ponderings," has allowed my current focus on trans-dimensional "contact" scenarios to blossom through the prism of these Sabian symbols (symbols linked to the Babylonian culture,) to find a kind of wonky output of insight– Rudhyarian-style circa 1973. Which, by the way, is also my year of birth.

Pisces 01º: In a crowded marketplace farmers and middlemen display a great variety of products.

15:53, 02.21.2015, Pisces 02º (late posting)

pp. 268-269     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

SCENE TWENTY-THREE: FEDERATION
(Pisces 01º to Pisces 16º)

FIRST LEVEL: ACTIONAL

PHASE 331 (PISCES 01º): IN A CROWDED MARKETPLACE FARMERS AND MIDDLEMEN DISPLAY A GREAT VARIETY OF PRODUCTS.

KEYNOTE: The process of commingling and interchange which at all levels demonstrates the health of a community.

In any twelve-fold division of a complete cycle (for instance the 12 zodiacal signs and the 12 Houses of a birth chart) the twelfth section often has been given a negative significance. It can refer to oppressive conditions as it represents a "closing of accounts," a final evaluation of the harvest of the cycle a man reaps what he has sown. But it may also be honors, social prestige, the interests of well-managed wealth. In this twenty-fourth scene what is stressed is the coming together, in a final experience of community, of all factors previously experienced; this means constructive interaction and an interchange of the products of social activity. In a practical sense, the symbol, whenever it is found, emphasizes that the time has come to take full advantage of the social opportunities to bargain and to trade.

This is the first stage of the process related to the sixty-seventh five-fold sequence of symbols. It refers to all that can be gained from social interplay and especially, in the broader sense of the word, from COMMERCE.

Aquarius 30º: Deeply rooted in the past of a very ancient culture...

15:22, 02.21.2015, Pisces 02º (late posting)

pp. 267-268     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 330: (AQUARIUS 30º): DEEPLY ROOTED IN THE PAST OF A VERY ANCIENT CULTURE, A SPIRITUAL BROTHERHOOD IN WHICH MANY INDIVIDUAL MINDS ARE MERGED INTO THE GROWING LIGHT OF A UNANIMOUS CONSCIOUSNESS IS REVEALED TO ONE WHO HAS EMERGED SUCCESSFULLY FROM HIS METAMORPHOSIS.

KEYNOTE: The ability for the person with an open mind and a deep feeling for self-transcendence to come in contact with higher forms of existence.

The originally recorded Sabian symbol stated: "The field of Ardith in bloom," which referred to a scene in an occult novel by Marie Corelli centering upon ancient Babylon. The reference may well have been a "blind" inasmuch as Marc Jones has stressed his inner contact with a Brotherhood with Babylonian (or "Sabian") roots. A spiritual Brotherhood constitutes a state of "multi-unity"–i.e. a multiplicity of individuals, if one things of the paths they trod to reach their final metamorphosis, but a unity of consciousness and "Soul"–thus unanimity ("anima" meaning Soul). In this spiritual Whole each unit is a recognizable "form" or entity if one looks at it with the eyes of personality; but when seen through a unified spiritual vision or from a distance, the Whole appears to be one single area of radiant light. Similarly, when studied by the modern physicist, light can be apprehended either as a stream of identifiable particles (photons) or as one continuous wave. Whether it is seen as one or the other depends on the point of view.

This is the last and culminating symbol of Scene Twenty-two of the cyclic ritual. This is indeed a fitting symbol, as the number 22 symbolizes all forms of mastery. At any level, it is a symbol of spiritual group fulfillment–of CONSCIOUS TOTALITY OF BEING.