First of all, since there are 360° of the Zodiac and 365 days of the year, we have a bit of catch up to do such that the symbol for today doesn’t kick in until late this afternoon and bridges into tomorrow. And I’m so psyched that this image is super Natural, as tomorrow is Beltane, May Day. In Gaelic tradition, nearest and dearest to my heart, Beltane marked the day the cattle were driven out to summer pasture, so we see a connection to the sign of Taurus into which the holiday falls. Special bonfires are lighted on this day, providing protective power to cattle, crops and we the people. All house fires were extinguished and re-lit from these sacred fires, and there were feasts with offerings to the Aos Sí or Sidhe (remember my post about Ard Na Sidhe?), the supernatural race of beings that we call hmm-hmms in our household, who live in a parallel universe along with us. They are the spirits of the natural world and so we today and tomorrow celebrate the Taurus 11° symbol of A Woman Watering Flowers In Her Garden.

It is nowhere said that the Woman is the goddess herself, but that is my interpretation. I see her as Gaia, the personification of the Earth, nurturing her spirit children embodied in the flowers. I also think of the Samarian woman of several days ago, at her well, where she met with divinity incarnate, in the form of the Christ avatar; now she has drawn that water and is using it to cultivate her own garden. In a twelve-fold seequence, we are here under the influence of the fifth sign of Leo, and its astrological house of co-creation with god. As the fixed-fire sign, which translates to the hearth, the center of the home—Leo rules the heart, the center of the body—we are looking at the consolidation of energy and passion and it being a source of life-force for others. And, of course, we are back to those sacred Beltane fires of fertility and protection.

The consciousness of the woman “attaches itself to the wondrous efflorescence”  with a selfish kind of love, says Rudhyar. I don’t know about that, but I do know that ego and pride are hallmarks of the Leo experience, and a healthfully prideful person does tend to be invested in what she cultivates. Especially gardeners. It defines them. In that sense, the flowers symbolize the cultivation of the ego itself. And though I’m sure there is some truth and power in this interpretation, the notion of Beltane and hmm-hmms is no doubt lost on our dear Dane. I think this oracle has a far more sweeping symbolic resonance when we consider the biological beyond the animal (human) and floral forms, and consider that, just as those flowers might have individual spirits, the planet, as organism, has her own supreme godhead. And it’s up to Mother Nature to decide what or not gets cultivated.

At a time when our planet is in such crisis, I cannot help but feel that Nature herself will always have the last laugh. Yes we should stop global warming and all forms of pollution not because we are killing the planet, per se, but because, I suspect, the planet will have a way of ridding itself of the causes (us) of any dis-ease. Right now we are trying the Earth, pressuring her beyond healthy boundaries; but I don’t think she is by Nature a victim; I imagine her being quite patient with us hoping we get our act together before she has no other choice but to destroy us, not the other way around. Surely, ancient agrarian cultures like my ancestral Gaels were far more reverential toward Tara, which is the name of both the Irish mother goddess and the tantric Hindu diety; not dissimilar from Terra, which is the Roman name for Gaia. (It seems to all be of a piece.) The ancients probably had no concept of being able to kill her the way we consider modern people capable of destroying the natural world. Even in our notion of saving Her, I think we take far too much pride in assuming that we might have the power to obliterate Mother Nature in the first place. Who says? Sure, we can blow ourselves up but we really would never blow up our Mother planet. We don’t have that power. She is a patient goddess, as we’ve seen, and she will continue to tend her garden, whether we’ve irradiated and/or exited it or not.

I like to think of the May pole not just as some phallic symbol helping to fertilize a new season of the Mother’s bounty. I see it as an emblem of the axis on which the Earth and we are spinning. Our dancing around it is a reconfirmation of our commitment to live life here on Her terms. She is the center of our world. We do not have dominion over her. She is waiting ever so patiently for us to come to that conclusion. She doesn’t want to wipe Her face of us. She takes pride in us as she does every flower. We are hers. To her the concept of being in the world but not of it is anathema. She is our mother. And she is cosmic. She is a body floating in outer space after all. Yes she has a heavy relationship with the Sun God, and she keeps the Moon Lady on the side. She be fierce. And we don’t want to find out just how much. And so we should strive to align, as her special guardians, to the grand Cultivation that is her inscrutable m.o.. Woe be to those who don’t give her all the props in the Universe this Beltane.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I really must take a look-see at the list of folks born on this day because today’s energetic oracle seems to be all about compassion in the its most sweeping, serving, sacrificial humanitarian form. For Taurus 10° the image is A Red Cross Nurse. We are doing more than just going inward to foster our own life and celebrate our own spirit when faced with bleak environments or circumstance outside our window: We are venturing forth into the darkness and personifying the light for others. Being a Red Cross nurse means this is volunteerism; there is no gain or the making of a livelihood. It is compassion in its purest form. There aren’t any perks here. This is true altruism. The Samarian woman of a few days hence might have met Christ but now the nurse is  the embodiment of a Christ-like nature. (The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton who was, incidentally, born on December 25—I don’t think that’s Christ’s actual birthday—he’s a Pisces, certainly, not a Capricorn;  but it is a fun fact.)

Just as yesterday’s Christmas tree would have been governed by Gemini in a twelve-fold sequence, it’s cozy interior and gifts for friends and family befitting that sign’s rule over ones immediate surroundings as well as intimate relations, today’s image would be ruled by the sign of Cancer, one of hope and feeling, nurture, recovery and salve, if not salvation. Cancer is ruled by Mother Moon and its realm is that of feeling. The nurse is moved not by mind but emotions to care for those in need. They are the gateway to her spirituality. So few among us are thus inclined. We don’t want to look outside if the landscape is troubling. We want to stay in doors with our decorated tree, fancy flimsy china, copper pots and decoupage ornaments. We perhaps missed the symbolism of all good gifts surrounding us; we are trapped in the trappings of our comforts, disinclined to share our abundance, but bemoaning our lack. How many of you heard, or said, that this winter was bad for your business, your bounty? I heard it most from people with more worldly goods by far than most. Poor Eve. Enough isn’t enough for some people—they think they can have it all and they can’t. Meanwhile, in fear, they cling to their candle-lit rooms and dried, dead floral arrangements, worried sick they mightn’t make another million this year. Compassion will forever be lost on them.

When I read A Red Cross Nurse I got an immediate image, which, at first, I thought was frivolous, but as I’m writing this I realize the opposite is really true. Before there was
“Downton Abbey” there was “Upstairs, Downstairs”, the former having stolen so many of it’s plots from the latter it’s not even real. UpDown as we diehard fans like to call it is a million times better than the pat confection that’s presently presented by PBS, which showed the truly original UpDown back in the day. Start from the beginning and rent every season. Any show that gets away with calling an evil German sadistic homosexual aristocrat Baron von Rimmer is aces is my book. Enough said.

Back to the nurse: In the 1973 season the character of Georgina is introduced, shades of Sybil for you “Downright Abject” fans. Georgina is played by the lovely Lesley-Anne Down and during the Great War she is swept up by compassion and becomes a Red Cross nurse, despite the fact that she comes from Upstairs. For, really, it’s far more difficult for the Upstairs set to leave their drawing-room fear-based lives of losing what they have than it is for those who’ve nothing material to squander and whose lives are already all about service. But off Georgina goes even though she is the most celebrated bright young thing of her generation, the century-old version of a dreaded Kardashian only with an I.Q. and taste. I think of the people I know sometimes and ask myself are they Up or Down. Those who were Up in modern America are often so because they were born into Down circumstances. Many of those who are Down are vehemently so, having contempt for anything Up. I think of our summer place Provincetown where the great culture war is increasingly being played out. I like to think of myself as somewhere on the staircase employing my wit. I am an equal opportunity shade magnet. The Downs can find me uppity and suspect I have some kind of trust fund. Wrong. I’m a quasi-well-traveled autodidact whose busted my ass so to work for myself. The Ups seem to worry about me and tend not to visit but rather invite me, considering their surroundings so much nicer. Meanwhile the smokey tattooed former set is typically Bennington educated and more well-heeled and cared for by parents affording their stylish love of poverty, whilst the lockjaw latter crowd with their chihuahua accessories and editorial mudrooms were my busboy a New York minute ago and have zero references beyond Lulu Guinness and “Glee”.

But let’s get metaphysical. Cancer, the sole cardinal-water sign, is associated with The Flood; just as Gemini, mutable-air is associated, in its shadow aspect, with overthinking, duality, consciousness of opposites that characterizes The Fall. In Gemini, we are subject to dualistic thinking—its ruler Mercury is named for the god of tricksters, liars, merchants, jugglers, thieves, basically a whole bunch of carnies—and so we see how yesterday’s symbol might leave one torn. Do we stay cozied up against the harsh outside world in our glittering world of gifts, or do we go beyond our immediate surrounds to help wash others’ cares away. In the Greek flood myth, it is the goddess Themis who saves humanity after the destruction of Zeus. She is the mother source of repair. And we take on her mantle, as did UpDown’s Georgina, when we leave the comfy world of personal attachemnt with its trumped up petty dramas, and selflessly and impersonally participate in the care of all. We become the light to the hurt and despondent and the reparation of humanity.

I do things for social and creative causes; but I have never expressed volunteerism on this most consecrated of levels. Seemingly, neither has anyone famous born on this day. So much for that theory being born out. Seriously, go look at a list of famous people born this Taurus day. There are some lovely people, but mainly its those who’ve cultivated a specific talent with nary a saint or nurse or would-be savior among them. Oh well. And anyway, for the occultists in my midst, the Red Cross mightn’t be all it’s cracked up to be. And there have been more than just conspiracy theory crackpots (who me?) who have drawn the connection between the Red Cross and the Rosy Cross or Rosicrucians, many of whom have a very sinister take on the organization, from its very origins, especially when it comes to things like blood-banking. My arms go weak just typing that. Ugh. Anyway, everything has it’s shadow side and so I offer up this wild and crazy  read by Dr. Len Horovitz which might put a spooky and cynical spin on Upstairs’ Georgina’s role in those field hospitals. “She done already done had herses.”

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Despite the seasonal discrepancy the oracle for today, Taurus 9°, is A Fully Decorated Christmas Tree, an artificial one of which is still in the window of the apartment across the alley outside mine. Oy. But the symbolic meaning transcends time of year. It is all about creating light in the darkness, like casting a Lumos spell, in Rowlingian vernacular. Rowlingian. I will have to Google that to see if I’ve just invented it. Nope I didn’t it’s out there already. Of course. The world outside is cold and barren, trees bare at Yule, while the Christmas tree inside can be lit up like, well, itself, decorated to the hilt. Let’s say the tree is life, if not of it; the one inside represents our inner life, which we can animate, even when external life around seems devoid of life energy or creativity. Works for me. The tree representing our inner life forms a canopy for gifts which we can present to others, the nurturing of our inner spirit giving bounty to those around us. The external landscape may symbolize any time we feel a low point in our experience or sense lack emanating from the environment around us and those who people it. Not to worry, we can always celebrate (ourselves) and in so doing be a source of abundance, happiness, a light in the darkness, for others. Being originally a pagan tradition, the tree ceremony marked the Solstice which is the darkest point in the year and, yet, at the point when light is on the wax, returning, albeit slowly. In us, meanwhile, as Morrissey put it, “there is a light that never goes out.” This symbol suggests that we are aware of the cyclical nature of life—those barren trees outside aren’t dead, after all, they’ve dropped their need for outward appearance, attracting the birds and the bees, and have reverted their energy, inward, to the root level where growth is concentrated and crystalized, for the next outward-growth season to come. Today is a day when we might take a page from nature’s book and drop our concern for the world of appearances and instead look inward to sing a rowsing song of celebration of self that lifts others’ spirits along with our own.

Neighbor’s Artificial Inner Life

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

If yesterday’s cosmic energy was hinged on recognizing ourselves as being able to receive a certain revelation, and also to embody that revelation, as a result of a happy disconnect with traditions and tribes that no longer resonate with us, today is about living in the present in a matter suited to the future which you glimpsed in that revelation. Today’s Sabian Symbol for Taurus 8° A Sleigh On Land Uncovered By Snow suggests that the revelation, or indeed the reveal-ation, happens over time. Not to say that we mightn’t find ourselves to be something of a fish out of water, which is another aspect of this image. But that’s what comes from taking ones pioneering spirit and fixing it firmly. For a time it remains hidden, then it is revealed but unsuited to it’s environment but as the saying goes: Winter is coming. It always is. Thus today we consider, as Rudyhar puts it, the value of anticipating and preparing for expectable conditions. Of course your idea of what expectable conditions are differ from mine. We might see expectable conditions in an astrological chart which you may think is hooey; you might think some other Jesus is coming and first thing on his to-do list is to punish all the queer people. Everyone has been handed a different playbook of revelations. As well they should be.

I believe the snow symbolizes the purity of our own vision. In the wake of that we hope to have revealed a vehicle that can travel through the landscape of that vision. The paradox is that our vehicle cannot travel without the stuff of that vision. Which is right. We must reimagine our future, now, based upon the vehicle we’ve engineered from the original vision. A new version of vision must come to bear before we can move through our future experience. We got a glimpse at first of where things for us our going, we made a plan, now we must put both elements together to work that plan which will require revision. This will likely effect the nature or design of the vehicle, back and forth ad infinitum. Tweaking plan then vision will be a constant—our mistake will be to get stuck in the wholesale necessity for either to be fixed. But right now they are. This image emblemizes the idea that we should know where we’re going but be in no rush to get there because, timing being everything, we have to wait for the right climate and conditions. But we’re ready, regardless of who sees us as a fish out of water. The Jesus Fish was out of water for quite a long time—cue lions eating Christians—but slowly the environment caught up to those who were already living that future vision, at great sacrifice, to be sure.

Ah that’s the rub. How much are you willing to sacrifice? And, further, how patient can you be. In a twelve-fold sequence of signs rolling through these 360 symbols, today would be characterized as a double-Taurus image. We know, from our Taurean friends, the power of patience and persistence in their fixation on their own talents, if not visions. The sleigh is like a rosebud, waiting for the right conditions to bust forth, Orson Welles being a Taurus not withstanding. This sign—look around you at all the the buds and flowers preparing the way to bear fruit—is very much about latent or dormant potential. But it isn’t vague or undiscovered, it is already consciously known and accepted and being prepared for some kind of roll out. The potential of Citizen Kane, his path unfolding, his vision of the future, was already fully scripted in his experience as a young boy, synonymous with his sled. He glimpsed the future then, though he had to wait for it to unfold. And, in his case, it was as thorny as it was beautiful; likely because his vision involved some form of retribution. And his vehicle was designed to ride rough shod. His original revelation may have been as pure as the driven snow, but the means via which he sought to realize it colored that vision as he journeyed forth, vehicle and vision, vehicle and vision, informing and reforming one and other, over the hills of time.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Here we are again at the number 1/13 in a twelve-fold cycle, on day 37, Taurus 7° having thrice passed through the zodiac and, thus starting the cycle anew. So, little surprise we are arriving at yet another symbol of new order: The Woman Of Samaria At The Ancestral Well. I had to do some online research on this one to ascertain what it was all about. So, apparently Jesus, newly risen, not only appeared to this woman but he outright told her (I would play this with ironic false modesty) yeah, “I am he.” Now why this is so important is because she’s the first and arguably the only person he says this too. This is before he let’s on to his disciples—I’m back—but even with them he never really says it in so many words. You know our Jesus, always with the metaphors and parables. I so relate—pin in that. Now, apparently the Jews hated the Samarians for like evah. And this unmarried woman is meant to represent the fringiest element of her culture, so she’s not, like, someone official or vetted, Samarian-wise. Still, she is at the ancestral which connotes a deep tradition; get it? So here we have the messiah telling a traditional enemy of his people, and someone pretty out there within her society. Yep, I’m the Christ. I’m the new order, in effect; the implication being that she’s already disenfranchised from her tradition and thus pretty open to receive the proverbial good news. The breakdown of the old guard is already embodied in her non-adherence, if not disobedience, to the traditions of her own culture. So in her we have a willing recipient if not a convert to what JC has to say.

Dane Rudhyar puts it thusly: A new quality of being is revealed which renders the old patterns obsolete. Word. On first meditation I thought this oracle wasn’t going to resonate with me personally but it really does. First, I’m the fancy free Samarian babe at the well pretty much over not just the old-guard traditions of society-at-large at which anyone reading this blog would scoff. For there are more localized traditions, more recent ancestry in my midst that I can’t subscribe to and doesn’t really cozy up to me either. Some of you might relate when I say I don’t feel I’m all that readily embraced by my tribe. I’m not the person you trip over to talk to or have for one of your special dinners as a guest of honor. Mine is not the face that artists and photographers (and I’m talking friends and close colleagues) are jokeying to paint or shoot in portrait. People don’t hang on my every word or Facebook post regarding gentrification or gender issues. I’m simply not one of those people who are fawned over or petted or celebrated in any major way. It’s just not how others generally regard me, but for in very few instances, among my dearest friends, the number of which I can surely count on two hands. And that’s the way it is and that’s the way it’s meant to be and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Except…I’m also the other figure not mentioned in the wording of this oracle…

Surrounded as I am by golden calves who are endlessly being worshipped, invited, raised high, painted, photographed, and otherwise blown, many of whom worship, invite, name drop, paint, photograph, us-y and otherwise rim all the other golden calves in one big gilt bovine cluster fuck, year after year, amassing a deep well of mutual, group ancestral sychophancy, I (have decided to) emerge as an avatar of a new order. Yep, that’s right folks, I’m busting out as the new messiah and I’m really only most interested in revealing my truth, disclosing my true nature, to other people like myself who don’t give a shit about where everyone is going, what they’re wearing, whom their with and how many shows of validation they are receiving on Facebook for whatever gumball of an opinion or a snark remark has fallen from their overindulged, egocentric noggins. While most fatuous folks we know are lost in their orgy of pseudofame and delusions of power and influence, pretending to some pedigree and treating everyone like they’re some lucky servant whose role it is to dote on them, I’ll be at the well, if not the bar, hanging with a new tribe of goils who are not above fetching their own refreshment, thank you very much.

Like both the Samarian doll and my main man JC, I tend not to fit in with the prevailing tribe. Once upon a time, that might have bothered me; but now I’m so effing grateful. There really isn’t much in it, spiritually that is. Sure, you might have some fragile sense of belonging, but it takes up a lot of time and energy, all that worshiping and being worshipped. It’s truly dullsville. While being on the fringe has a sharpening effect on your psyche, such that one day you can wake up and enjoy the revelation and declaration that you are in fact gods’ gift to humanity, but you were just too humble all this time to go around advertising the fact. Except when you meet someone who is as unimpressed as you are by the heirarchies of worship in your midst, and all the middle men, so many middle men. And so many yes men. Meh, who needs it. Not me. I have nobody to impress. Who has time? What with all the money lenders needing ridding from the temples and all those in pain in need of healing, seriously I’m lucky I have time to stop and share three simple words with my lady pal over a ladle of some cool fresh H20.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The oracular energy of today is all about overcoming obstacles. Perhaps as a result of that dreaded pot of gold of two days ago—you can’t take it with you—yesterday we faced the abyss of an open grave. But today at 6° Taurus we seem to be building a Cantilever Bridge Across A Deep Gorge, suggesting there is a way to find a lasting link while living. What is highlighted here is some kind of collective—we can’t build a bridge on our own. The link we are creating is that between people, via group cooperation, just as it is one designed to help us over a sense of emptiness or void, these dynamics being one and the same.

Looking at my schedule today, it is the day that I must begin contracting all the seventeen artists I have slated to perform this year’s Afterglow Festival in Provincetown. And I must also reach out to sponsors and donors to fund this yearly project. I’ve been trying to build other bridges with other venues, as well, to produce the great artists with whom I’ve the privilege to work, but it has been a total slog. Not returning emails. How do people get away with this? It’s part of a larger question which is: why do people who operate so shoddily in the world, with no regard to formality or the social fabric, succeed at all? We seem all to often to reward those who are self-serving, ineffective and second-rate; while individuals of quality and character have to spend their time bumping up against these, let us call them, void-ers. I’ve resolved, at various times in my career (which has entailed the wearing of many hats) to be more cutthroat and other c-words, but I only ever end up being compassionate, even for these void-ers, which partly pisses me off, but, for which, I am largely grateful. I’m not after that pot of gold after all. I’m interested in experience. But, man oh man, you would not believe the people who have reached out to contact us this year, friends at ad agencies that want to help us spread our word, even so-called good friends with production studios and branding companies wanting to help realize our vision. And then (what is it like to live in these people’s heads) they completely disappear. You called us, remember? This is not true connection. This isn’t building a cantilever bridge. This is the opposite. Honestly I think some people must wake and bake and think they’re having an epiphany about us and what we’re doing and gain the momentary bravado to phone and promise the moon. But again, it’s just fairy favors. That pot of gold.

The only way you build a bridge together, whether professionally or personally, is to start building it. Before we ever charged clients or even called what we did a consultancy we offered our services up for free. We don’t get paid to do the Afterglow Festival, we just do it to fill a void and prevent a further chasm in Provincetown’s birthright as the birthplace of the modern American stage. I do this by holding out my beggar’s bowl and asking those whom I believe have a stake in Provincetown’s stage heritage remaining intact to give what they can, whether it be ten dollars or ten thousand. I can ask for money because it goes solely toward building that cantilever bridge. It has nothing to do with me personally, but for the pleasure and satisfaction I derive from pulling this project off each year. As it’s become increasingly successful, mercenary minds want something from it. Those who gave to us now see us as a way for them to profit and it makes me queasy. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve taken the gloves off this week with the blog. I’m on a bit of a Norma Rae soap box; but I am a Libra after all, and any form of injustice makes me break out in a rash of righteous swords.

Today’s symbol really is about making one’s individual life better by recognizing a chasm that needs to be bridged and working with others toward doing just that. Certain things cannot be done on our own. And those of us who recognize where there is lack or have understood deprivation in any sense of the word (like that widow yesterday) are more equipped than others to make some positive changes, buidling bridges in this world. This gives the individual life substance and purpose. I’ve quoted her before but as Uta Hagen would say: Obstacles only make your objectives stronger. So if the hotel that usually gives our artists discount rooms during the Afterglow Festival suddenly wants to profit on us this might inspire me to reach out to a bunch of hotels and inns and ask them to house our artists individually, and gratis to boot. It’s way more work for me, but it’s good work. As I write this I realize that Greed is one of the biggest voids that exists in this world. Look at the polarization of the haves and have nots. The gulf between them has become vast because the greedy find a way to buy politicians and otherwise find loopholes around paying taxes while raising prices on everything their corporations manufacture, including food that makes people sick so that they have to spend their hard earned money on drugs created to cure illnesses these same corporations, in effect, created. I wish this was exaggeration but it isn’t.

It is indeed more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; which is why I’m most in awe of my richest friends who spend their money in truly philanthropic ways. There are those who have given to my non-profit since year one whom I know strive to give as much as they can. Wealth and fame do not make people happy, that is a fact. And there is something about the making of a lot of money that corrupts people and causes them to horde it. I think this can happen to most folks. So I find it so rare and refreshing when I encounter those of means who give so much without thought to it just being a good write off or buying some kind of recognition. One of our most faithful patrons insists on being anonymous and is truly caring. And there of course is Ms. Rowling who singlehandedly pays for the entire operation of her Lumos foundation, so that if I person makes a donation to it, that whole amount goes toward the cause, never toward expenses. People of means do have a great power to do good in this world and so few of them do, ironically. It’s so inspiring when they dedicate their life to building bridges over gaping voids they see in our human society. I know many rich people give money to causes, but so few care about them.

Okay hopping off my soapbox. What I am realizing from this oracle is that I can’t do something that can be metaphorically expressed as bridge-building alone. True progress is a collective endeavor and must include the ideas and skills of more than one person. A cantilever bridge is only fixed at one end. That is to say we don’t know where the other end might lead; we must be flexible in regard to where our efforts might “land.” This is why those hit and run contacts from people pretending (to themselves) that they want to “help” doesn’t work—because the fact is they are leading with their agenda, they know exactly where they want the so-called collaborative effort to land: in their own pocket books or with an individual feather in their cap. This is why they cannot follow through. Because they were never prepared to devote to the process of filling a void, that was a pretense for their own reward. So, if you’re one of those people who reach out to others under the guise of collectively wanting to make some corner of the world a better place, when really you are only fishing for projects via which you might profit, you should take this oracle to heart today. Because you not only don’t gain a foothold with that future aim, you lose any ground you’ve gained in the relationship you sought to parlay into your half-wake-and-baked vision.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

I was just reading back yesterday’s post and boy was I cranky. Something about that pot of gold image really set me off. I may go back and add to that one, giving the oracle more meditative consideration. Or then again, maybe I’ll just leave that post with it’s Garfield attitude as is. Today’s symbol is quite the opposite in energy. A Widow At An Open Grave is the oracle for Taurus 5°. I suppose I deserve this image today for my bad attitude yesterday. Then again, such things being paradoxical, I see more hope and experience more revelation that that pot of gold offered. And the relationship between these two symbols does suggest that yesterday’s treasure was something of a fairy favor; it wasn’t real and/or it couldn’t last.

The abyss of an open grave. Well both figuratively and, often literally, this is waiting for us all. The great democracy is death. And you can’t take that pot of gold with you. Perhaps you can take spiritual treasures with you, depending on your beliefs. But the truth of the matter is that life is ephemeral and all material bonds, and those even with whom we share a great love, are most sadly going to come to a natural end. It sucks. I don’t think I’d want to live forever if it weren’t for the great love relationship of my life. I’m not attached to things—I’ve never been a materialist—and comparatively speaking, vis a vis my friends and colleagues, I am a person of very few possessions and very little terrestrial attachment. But the notion of being without a true love is really too much to bare. Probably no other reality has more inspired belief in some kind of afterlife or reincarnation, even, with the hope, in either case, that you are reunited with those you most love in the world. It is a notion that is eternally debatable. But there are some comforting thoughts on the subject:

For one science does tell us that energy can neither be created nor destroyed; and I’m not just speaking of the spiritual energy that animates us as humans; but also of the love we share. As well, there has been some ethereal evidence in my experience of human connection transcending the boundary of life and death. Working with clients we frequently get a sense, and often a name, of someone who has passed being quite invested in the living individual. That’s all I will say about that.

I believe this oracle is about the difference between love and attachment. As emotionally wrenching as it is we must strive to find a healthy detachment from all things that shall pass. And there can be some comfort. For instance, my mother was ill with Alzheimers for years and was also under the care and/or control of my one sibling who purposefully kept contact between us estranged, which in large part was for the best. The awful truth is that I didn’t see my mother during the last three years of her life. So when she ultimately passed I actually had, have had, more a sense of connection with her than during the last decade of her life. It’s as if she is more accessible to me now than during her final years.

Let’s discuss death metaphorically though for a minute, separate from the fact that we are all literally dying from the moment we are born—an ultimate paradox. We experience death of situations and relationships all the time. We don’t know when it’s coming, typically, just like the real deal. There’ll be a call (or my favorite: an email at 5 o’clock on a Friday) that a job or gig that you’ve had, and upon which you probably counted, for ages has suddenly bit the dust. Or somebody will get a bee in their bonnet about something and snuff out your bond with them. Well the subject of this oracle isn’t the grave, really, but the widow; and that suggests to me that we are meant to meditate on what becomes of her. We are all widowed by experiences like the examples above. Things end all the time. The question is, what do we do next? Whenever there is a real or metaphoric death we start over, in a sense; and we typically try not to repeat the mistakes of the past—when taken metaphorically—just as we might understand we can’t replicate a relationship with a loved one who leaves us. We can have new relationships, but we’ll never have that one; perhaps because we’re still having it and we’ll always have it. In the case of a real death of a true intimate, I think it’s very rare that we would want to bond again so deeply; instead I think human nature dictates that we involve ourselves more detachedly should we find love again.

Surely, this is true when we stay in metaphoric land. We will not repeat the mistakes we made in a job, say, if we find ourselves suddenly fired from one. In simple terms we might say we won’t let ourselves be hurt that way again. But really, we are inspired to transcend and to invest less personally, next time, in like situations. The pain of losing a job or opportunity is invariably felt by the ego. But herein we learn the lesson of letting go lightly. All that we experience with our senses is impermanent, which is why eastern philosophies often characterize so-called reality as the illusion. What if anything is permanent one wonders. Eternity is the self-evident response, but what is that? Is it something that we can participate in. I would say yes. But you shouldn’t listen to me. You would have to experience such a connection for yourself to know. I suddenly hear a parody of a pharmaceutical company in my head: As your metaphysician if Eternity is right for you. Side effects may include transmuation into pure love and light, transcendence of time and space, expression of your full divine nature, and Oneness.

 In astrology the eighth house rules death, sleep and sex, among other key attributes. Why these three elements hang together is because they fall under the larger concept of regeneration. The diviners of our ancient Zodiac believed death to be a means via which the spirit achieved rebirth, just as sleep rejuvenates the body and sex reproduces life. It does reflect that scientific view of indestructable energy. So I’m going with that. Still we feel the pain of the loss of personal attachment and I don’t believe we’re meant to transcend those feelings completely, especially when we leave the realm of metaphor in considering the message of this symbol. And yet, we must continually make our peace with saying goodbye to the past. And really, who among us is really that good with goodbyes?

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Today’s symbol for Taurus 4° is The Pot Of Gold At The End Of The Rainbow and I’m just not feeling it. Maybe because it’s such a trite image or maybe because I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I had imagined the rainbow two days ago when writing about the electrical storm and now here it is. Just seems a bit convenient and cliché. Also I feel like the messages of these oracles are starting to repeat a bit. If today is about linking the earthly and the divine via that rainbow, I feel that we have done that. But I do like the idea of a pot of gold. I could use one of those right about now. Who doesn’t want some kind of an assist like a bolt out of the blue. Being a self-starter who lives by my wits, I’m not given to magical thinking when it comes to money. But, again, I think I woke up in a mood; and I was just thinking how nice it would be to not have so much responsibility and just be taken care of for a change. This is so unlike me to say; but I think because I don’t have any family in either direction, I don’t have the luxury, really, of letting others take the wheel or just crawling back into the bosom of those who might cradle me, metaphorically speaking. Just for a day, I’d like to be like a kid again, and not have to shop or cook or clean or pay a bill. I would just like to be coddled a bit. Does this have anything to do with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? Probably not.

But that’s all I got today folks. I need a little breather.

Postscript: In a twelve-fold sequence, this symbol would fall under the rule of the sign of Capricorn, which is the goat-horn of plenty, in effect that pot of gold. The rainbow is a connection between our earthly existence and heavenly experience, mortal and divine existence. True bounty being spiritual bounty. And, yes, this alone is a solid interpretation of today’s oracle in that we have daily opportunities to amass spiritual riches. It is indeed far easier to do so than it is to make material gain. Living by the golden rule, for starters, is the easiest way to fill our non-material coffers. In mythology, the goat-horn contained the nectar of the gods, that which nourished their divinity. And with every kindness, good deed or thought, we find our own divine nature being fed and sustained. Capricorn is the sign of active faith, acting in a manner that expresses belief in our ultimate bounty, our personal resource. It’s motto is I use, that is to say I do not waste or squander said resources but employ every fiber of our being to insure my ultimate fulfillment. This is the opposite of leaving anything to chance. “Luck is the residue of design.”

 That pot of gold is wrought from faith and filled with the collateral of our actions. The rainbow isn’t a road lined with good intentions. It is a revelation of spiritual innuity. Faith is the highest form of feeling, the ultimate emotional investment being in our self-fulfillment. The pot of gold isn’t a fairy favor, it’s the sum total of our commitment to and confidence in ourselves. It’s the resulting manfiestion of our employing every fiber of our being to become the highest version of ourselves. The pot of gold might have real coins in it, ultimately. True bounty doesn’t distinguish between material and non-material wealth—on this rarified level, value is value and its own reward. Still, those who recognize their own worth, and leave no stone unturned in their aspiration to fully realize it, rarely want for anything. The pot of gold is not the goal, nor is it something given, it contains the measure of our merit and is something we ourselves carried into this world. It has always been with us and shall ever be.

 Take stock of your actions and your endeavors. Are they adding to your pot of gold? Are they illuminating a path toward it. Or are you squandering your gifts and talents and time and energy? You decide what adds up or not to your ultimate fulfillment. It is the same as that which inspires faith in yourself. Faith isn’t automatic, it isn’t a fleeting feeling. It is, along with prosperity, a sustained emotion. We cannot manufacture this feeling. We invest it in our right actions, it suffuses them and endows them with enduring energy. Faith is our ultimate resource and we just might find, when we get to the end of that rainbow and gaze into that pot of gold, that what we mainly see there, glittering back up at us, is a giant heap of that self-same stuff fear-vanquishing stuff: The residuals of a faithful design.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Today is a totally Taurus image: Natural Steps Lead To A Lawn Of Clover In Bloom is the oracle on day 33, Taurus 3°. The Sky God of yesterday has apparently fertilized the Godess Mother of two days hence and now we are bearing fruit in the form of flowers that will feed the bees and create honey. I suppose Natural Steps are a metaphor. To be in clover is one in itself. Especially if it’s the three-leaf kind, la fleur du lis, the trinity originally signifying the triple goddess, here, in triplicate. This is day 33 at 3 degrees, and in my estimation, this oracle is ruled by Sagittarius the 9th sign of the Zodiac. The trinity also points to the mind, body and spirit in us. So I guesstimate that we should endeavor to find that connection today. And to find that connection, I suppose, we need to proceed by steps. Dan Rudhyar describes this oracle thus: The gradual expansion of the individual consciousness after a fecundating experience. So assuming you’ve had a hot fecundating experience, your sense of expansiveness should be happening gradually. Fantastic. Let us hope they don’t take the form of warts or worse. Because, really, I think it begs the question: what have you been fertilizing, lady? We are in the sign of Taurus now, after all, and we must never underestimate the power of Bull shit.

In order to attract bees to us us, we must have something to market. So we’ve been asked to pinpoint our natural talents, and we’ve allowed for some genius ideas to strike us, now we are ready, in a sense, to brand ourselves. And we must do so in a careful step-by-step roll out, ever mindful of what is sweet about what we have on offer. We will remain humble in this process without undermining our self-esteem. That is, after all, the sweet spot in any display of personality. Yes we must be diligent and determined, but never desperate, knowing the full value of what we possess and present. Today does feel like it’s pencils down time, a day where were should present our ideas and display our wares.

For real, I awoke last night to the sound of thunder around 3 a.m.. There’s always the what was that? element to hearing that premier crash and roll of reverberation each Spring, as if one is hearing it for the first time, unawares. I know some people dread that sound, but I find it so exciting and invigorating, as if the very air is shot through with possibility. So imagine my synchronistic surprise when I stumbled to my computer to find that, for today, at 2° Taurus, the Sabian Symbol du jour is An Electrical Storm! We’re told this oracle stands for “cosmic power able to transform all implications of natural existence.”

Dane Rudhyar sees this image as being in contrast to yesterday’s mountain stream, a powerful ambient display versus a lovely mountain trickle; I’m not sure I fully agree that there is a contrast in power, only in the manifestation of power. If yesterday was all about the Mother Source, I see today as a demonstration of Father Sky, thunder and lightning being the estate of chief gods like Thor and Jove (Zeus/Jupiter), for which Thursday (Italian: Giovedi; French: Jeudi) is named. The show of male power might be more blustery and obvious, but let us not forget that mountain stream’s ability to carve through stone in its enduring development, perhaps, toward becoming a great raging river, something which might be harnassed to make that self-same electricity. The point is that the feminine expression of power is, horizontal, over time; while the masculine demonstration is vertical, instantaneous, in a flash. All too often these dynamics are played out in the intimate interplay of the sexes. You know who you are.

An electrical storm is rife with potential of a different sort than the mountain stream. The latter symolizes what is innate, latent, even dormat maybe, lying on the inside, emerging slowly with an eye on endurance; while the former promises, or indeed threatens, to impose a power of realization or perhaps genius upon us. Unlike the mountain stream which is the full expression of our true existing nature, the electrical strom may empower us by transforming us into another version of ourselves.

In a twelve-fold sequence, today’s oracle would be under the influence of the sign of Scorpio, which is the so-called opposite sign of Taurus (really they are higher sextaves of each other). Transformation is surely the keynote of the Scorpio experience and its rule of the 8th astrological house. We might liken the shock of an electric bolt to the sting of a Scorpion, but really, to be honest, I can always find connections, even where none exist. Still we can’t deny the potential transformative power of today’s oracle. We may be struck at any moment and, as a result, we won’t be the same. The shock to our system might turn on a few cartoon lightbulbs over head, but it might very well short-circuit what pathways, if not pathologies, we have already established. Remember the deep grooves made by the mountain spring—they may represent our nature, reinforced by habit over time. Well, now we might find ourselves being completely rewired by some outside force, if not a divine intervention or visitation. We have all heard stories of people being struck by lightning and thereby gaining certain gifts of prophesy or healing as a result.

And whereby the mountain stream is the bubbling up of emotion, the gateway to our spirituality, the electrical storm’s production of a thunder or lightning bolt would be a cosmic imposition specifically working upon us, aimed at our mind. In astrology, water symbolizes feeling and air connotes thought and ideology. We must look at the electrical storm as a release of stored or pent up energy. Something is brewing and the atmosphere is charged. Funnily enough, here on the eastern seaboard it does feel that way outside today. But metaphorically speaking, let us look upon this day through the lens of there being electricity in the air that will come to some culmination. Something’s gotta give; and in the releasing of energy we not only provide building pressure an escape, we find inspiration in the process. What I like most about today’s image, versus yesterday’s, is that we needn’t take any internal inventory. Rather we can participate in, commune with, the buzzy, potent atmosphere

I’m reminded of when I first graduated university in Boston. I decided to spend the summer in town before heading off to Paris in the Fall. I had already taken a job at the end of my senior year at the Cafe Florian on Newbury Street. Being back in Boston the space now holds the Thinking Cup where I do enjoy morning coffee, post yoga. It’s funny to be in there. Back in the day it was owned by an older Hungarian couple and the menu consisted of caviar omelettes, vichyssoise, goulash and an assortment of pastries includie sacher tortes. They served wine and beer and in summer the other waiters and I would drink Pilsner with lemon. Our manager was called Ed who had the affectation of starting many a sentence with a drawn out “uhhh;” after our shift we would sit in the restaurant and play a drinking game where everytime we heard Ed say “uhhh” we’d have to take a sip. Oh the simple ways we used to amuse ourselves.

One day I was meant to work the outdoor cafe, arriving at 4PM for my evening shift, but I had a social opportunity I didn’t want to pass up. The weather looked and felt a little like it does today. I was sharing a huge apartment in Allston with mostly absentee roommates. I decided to do an experiment. I stood, arms akimbo, in the living rooms giant bay window and I attempted to “gather” the energy of the atmosphere into something of a rain storm. Now of course this could be coincidence; although witnesses to the fact seem to feel this actually happened: I poured every fiber of my intention into becoming one with the air and I found myself do all sorts of automatic movements and the wind did begin not just to blow but create mini tornadoes on the street just below the window and the sky suddenly blackened and it began to pour. A friend phoned a store next to the Florian and asked if it was raining there. It wasn’t. Then he phoned The Magic Pan which used also to be on Newbury Street, up the block. They said it was just starting to drizzle. Sweat was beading off my brow as I continued my new wave rain dance; and I gave it one more powerful thrust of intention and movement for power and called the Florian myself. Hi I’m supposed to work the cafe but it’s absolutely pouring here, how about there? It was torrential and I was let off work for the night. I hung up and within minutes the sun came out and there was a rainbow and I slapped on some Kouros (probably), threw on some Matinique outfit and set off for my sanctioned evening of social activity. Ah the days of no cellphones and minimal accountability and blessed anonymity.

So, witches, though today is about a release and intervention from the heavens, you might just be able to participate in its formation and its purpose. But mind you don’t do so too selfishly, as I believe I might have done that day. I do think someone who needed the money too my shift so I don’t think there was any karmic retribution. Still, if I were you, I’d focus straight on the rainbow!