Sagittarius 23°: A group of immigrants as they fulfill the requirements of entrance into the new country.

18:02, 12/16/2014, Sagittarius 23°

pp. 223-224

AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA

A REFORMULATION OF THE SABIAN SYMBOLS

by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 263 (SAGITTARIUS 23°):
A GROUP OF IMMIGRANTS AS THEY FULFILL THE REQUIREMENTS OF ENTRANCE INTO THE NEW COUNTRY.

KEYNOTE: Consciously accepting the ways of a new stage of experience, in readiness for the opportunities it will present.

As we pass any threshold leading to a new realm of existence we have to meet certain requirements and the necessity to adjust to new ways of life—in action, thought and feeling. At times this may seem an ordeal, but it is inevitable. Everything that will follow depends largely on how we cross this threshold, and on the spirit in which we meet unfamiliar and perhaps shocking experiences.

At this third stage of the fifty-third five-fold sequence we face a combination of the two preceding symbols. We find ourselves in a period of TRANSITION. We have to imitate, yet retain our inner integrity.

Girlcapsule's Response:

The image to the side shows a watercolor rendering of Ganesha. This was a gift I received from a very dear friend today. Lord Ganesha is known to be the god of new beginnings and the remover of obstacles. This seems a suitable gift to receive on a day that is characterized, archetypally speaking, by the Sabian Symbol system as a period of TRANSITION.

The same friend who gave me this beautiful gift mentioned Jung's use of the concept of enantiodromia as being related to the concept of yin-yang. With the term enantiodromia Jung was pointing to the nature of equilibrium—that any extreme is inevitably opposed in favor of restoring balance. Enantiodromia points to the moment when something gets to its extreme and is transmogrified into its opposite, or it's "shadow opposite", per Jung.

Part of Carl Jung's personal experience at a very early age involved the impulse to keep a stick man. This idea captured me as well, and my stick family is growing.

Sagittarius 22°: A Chinese laundry.

15:23, 12/15/2014, Sagittarius 22°

p. 223     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 262 (SAGITTARIUS 22°):  A CHINESE LAUNDRY.

KEYNOTE: Making use of one's special racial-cultural background in order to survive and prosper in an alien environment.

There are many life situations in which because of his ancestral or personal background, or his special interests, an individual finds himself separated from the people in the midst of whom he has to live. Yet he often can use this background as a valuable foundation for smooth operation and for acceptance by the alien environment, without losing his own natural character.

This second stage symbol stands in contrast to the one for the first stage. There is no longer a question of imitating the ways of a superior group, but instead of maintaining one's own integrity in situations which neither give value for, nor favor what one basically is. What is asked here is SELF-CONTAINMENT...and good humor!

Sagittarius 21°: A child and a dog wearing borrowed eyeglasses.

11:13, 12/14/2014; Sun: Sagittarius 21°

pp. 222-223     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

SECOND LEVEL: EMOTIONAL-CULTURAL

PHASE 261 (SAGITTARIUS 21°): A CHILD AND A DOG WEARING BORROWED EYEGLASSES.

KEYNOTE: The use of imagination and make-believe in anticipating higher stages of development.

This rather peculiar symbol seems to imply here that by imitating features belonging to a level of consciousness as yet unreachable, the process of growth may be accelerated. Eyeglasses symbolize intellectual development; the chiefs of primitive  tribes in some instances have sought to impress their people by wearing spectacles without glass, or Western hats—simply because these objects seemed characteristic of a race of superior people. This is similar to the process of growth by identification with a "Master" or guru. In a sense it is mere pretending or make-believe, yet by wearing the "mask" of a god the medicine man at the time becomes for all practical purposes the incarnation of the god. Growth is always a hierarchical process, even if the growing entity is not aware of it.

This is the first of five symbols constituting the fifty-third sequence. It suggests the value of LEARNING THROUGH IMITATION.

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

Sagittarius 19°: Pelicans menaced by the behavior and refuse of men seek safer areas for bringing up their young.

13:02, 12/12/2014, Sagittarius 19°

p. 221     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 259 (SAGITTARIUS 19°): PELICANS MENACED BY THE BEHAVIOR AND REFUSE OF MEN SEEK SAFER AREAS FOR BRINGING UP THEIR YOUNG.

KEYNOTE: The need for people concerned with the future to discover a new way of living and more wholesome surroundings.

The evident reason for using "pelicans" at this stage of the cyclic process is that tradition tells us that these birds are so concerned with their young that they give their own blood and flesh to feed their progeny. Whether this is fact of symbol, the meaning of this picture refers to a situation that lately has acquired great urgency. Our technological society is polluting not only our global environment, but the mind and feeling -responses of new generations as well. The search for a new way of life is seen by many people to be imperative.

In this fourth symbol of the fifty-second sequence we are told that the race's SURVIVAL has become a matter of extreme importance. Whole animal species may be destroyed by our civilization; mankind itself is in danger. Going to distant planets is hardly the answer. A generation may have to sacrifice itself for the sake of its descendants.


Girlcapsule's Response:

In today's first image there appears the word NOÖSPHERE. This is a word I learned about in connection with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's conception of cosmogenesis. It indicates sphere of human thought likened through analogy to the atmosphere or biosphere. Think of all the orchestrated packets of meaning flying around the planet—weaving themselves via Fourier Transform in and out and in, from time to timelessness and back again. We are most certainly adding a layer of thought to Earth's collective experience.

Portal to safety
Image of John Ringhofer's album cover art

Today I would expand my conception of the Noösphere to include also the thought-sphere of pelicans. This is the kind of developmental move that is surfacing in discussions of consciousness evolution: developing an I/Thou relationship rather than an I/it to the wider world.

Thomas Berry, a seminal voice in this lineage, is quoted as saying: "The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects." Many fields of learning are discovering the ways in which beings of Earth are designed by evolution to love each other well as a matter of SURVIVAL.

Today, I have felt empathy with a pelican parent. I have felt a lot of emotion well up in me as I opened to the possibility of feeling empathetic. It is overwhelming to the body to have to process the true state of things, as we now understand them. Rudhyar mentions the possibility of humans causing the extinction of an entire animal species. This is happening every day. The rate of species die-off is now competing with the last great dying 65 million years ago that wiped out so many of the dinosaur species. We are witnessing the rapid ending of the Cenozoic Era, mostly due to damage to Earth's systems caused by human activities.

From Hofstadter's GÖDEL, ESCHER, BACH

Consider the graphic organizer (image above) depicting a model entitled "Well-formed formulas". I was drawn to this image as upon first comprehension it seemed to send a spark of recognition through my being in a visceral manner—and I felt a surge of curiosity rise in the form of a question about the role of imagination.

Perhaps the imagination functions as a means of recovering wisdom that is maybe completely off the neatly connected path-ways of theorems and axioms symbolically represented in the diagram above. Intuition plays an accompanying role to guide one's ponderings. This is how I would represent one benefit of engaging in a process such as this: a meditation on the Sabian Symbols—just allowing for the possibility that as a prismatic model of wholeness it might open in my imagination a similar flourishing that might otherwise remain dormant.



In the post correlating with Sun in Sagittarius 15°, Rudhyar wrote of the need for "eonic consciousness". I'm happy to report I experienced the synchronicity of discovering in the back pocket of a sky blue notebook the seemingly random lone page 28, torn in some earlier session from Rudhyar's book and hidden away. When and why did I tear page 28 out of An Astrological Mandala? I have absolutely no idea. I remember thinking to myself that I should look up what Rudhyar meant by "eonic consciousness". I had it on my to-do-list, and this morning it appeared to me.

The blue notebook jumped out at me, in the way of calling itself to my attention through color resonance with the images I was working with this morning. Here is Jung's The Red Book open to a mandala on page 169. Darger's collection is open to an image of a watercolor, pencil, carbon tracing, and collage on pieced paper measuring 31-1/2" x 131". In a process of meditating on the resonance between the images I drew out the notebook seen under the torn page in the image above. You can see Darger's image also there in the background. It was as simple a process as that: color matching!

Jung's The Red Book, pp. 168-169, and The Henry Darger Collection, pp. 46-47

Henry Darger—Extreme innocence?

I was very pleased to find a reason to include Henry Darger's influence to the on-going discussion. Darger spent his childhood as an orphan in an asylum and his adult life as a janitor. In his free time and with all the resources he could pull together he created a prodigious body of work. His imagination opened to him an epic narrative that compelled itself through him.

From the perspective of Depth Psychology, it soon becomes apparent that Darger's creative process bears evidence of a psychological churning. Darger likely suffered sever trauma as a child which haunted him. Darger's epic story is of a group called the Vivian Girls who chose to ban together and fight an army of adult male soldiers whose intention is to gain control over them. In the battle scenes the girls are sometimes depicted as being bound or strangled.

The blue-tone picture shows a sample of one typical way in which Darger chose to depict his heroines. Why? I have no idea. Is it possible he never realized the ways in which male and female bodies differ? He was never known to have a partner of any sort. He lived his whole life alone.

Darger's art can be felt as utterly heart-breaking, but there is also an incredible wealth of joy from the imagination to be found. Consider the image below. Notice the imaginative enlarging of the flowers and the attention to decoration of clothing and hair. The second image shows a girl with horns like a ram and butterfly-like wings. Darger's Vivian Girls in their struggle against abusive and oppression and for the freedom of self-governance certainly carries the echo of today's keynote: The need for people concerned with the future to discover a new way of living and more wholesome surroundings.

Suggestion: Google search images for "Darger, Vivian Girls"

Sagittarius 18°: Children playing on the beach, their heads protected by sunbonnets.

12:26, 12/11/2014, Sagittarius 18°





pp. 220-221    AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 258 (SAGITTARIUS 18°): CHILDREN PLAYING ON THE BEACH, THEIR HEADS PROTECTED BY SUNBONNETS.

KEYNOTE: The protection society affords to as yet immature individuals as they begin to deal with the powerful energies of their unconscious nature.

What we call "culture" is an attempt to limit and define the areas of consciousness and interpersonal or group behavior within which growth and exploration into superphysical realms can be considered safe and sound. Sun and sea are powerful forces; they can kill as well as illumine and inspire, as can various kinds of forces within man's unconscoius. The cultural and religious institutions of society aim to act as protective agencies, especially for the youth. Overprotection and hypocritical behavior by supposed grownups defeat this purpose, and today we are witnessing an at least partially healthy rebellion against the protective paternalism of social institutions. This, however, does lead to many a symbolic "sunstroke."

This is the third symbol in the fifty-second five-fold sequence. It brings to us a realization of the value of PROTECTIVENESS, yet also evokes the negative possibility that too much protection may be unhealthy and defeat its purpose.

Sagittarius 17°: An easter sunrise service draws a large crowd.

10:39 AM, 12/10/2014, Sagittarius 17°

Oh, Blogger...where are your photo enhancement tools?

p. 220     AN ASTROLOGICAL MANDALA, by Dane Rudhyar (1973)

PHASE 257 (SAGITTARIUS 17°): AN EASTER SUNRISE SERVICE DRAWS A LARGE CROWD.

KEYNOTE: The culturally stimulated longing for group participation in a process of rebirth.

Since the very early days of man's evolution, religions and cults of various types have used the most significant periods in the year's cycle to dramatize the deepest longings of human nature, thus giving them direction, meaning, and through group action, a greater dynamic intensity. Easter is the Christian way of celebrating the coming of the spring and the rebirth of life on this earth after the hardships of winter.

At this second stage of the five-fold sequence we see, in contrast to the first, man discovering in nature's cycles great movements that stimulate his spiritual quest for the psychic and mental equivalent of solar light and warmth. The obvious Keyword here is REBIRTH.