American Indians Making Camp After Moving Into A New Territory is the symbol at 26° Scorpio and it is hinged on the ability to adjust swiftly to a new situation by tuning in to its requirements. Given the recent events in Paris, as was the case with 9/11, we can readily see the galvanization of people and countries to a “new environment”; but there is a shadow side to this which, as we’ve seen time and again, is the eroding of civil liberties which seems to be favored outcropping of these awful cultural events which play into the hands of those who would limit our freedom (if they are not the actual perpetrators, in part, of such terrible events). My own conspiracy theories aside, what are the immediate talking points? “State of emergency” measures that infringe on civil liberties in France and throughout Europe, escalation of war and xenophobia, even, here at home directed at Syrian refugees who are fleeing the very people we claim are our enemies.

Removing the negative modern spin that is foremost on my frontal lobe: This image is, at its core, about living in harmony with nature and therefore being at home anywhere. The natives in this image make no demands on their environment but enter into it and live within without opposing any demands or causing destruction. They are part of the natural biosphere. Generally, this was native American culture, as opposed to the European conqueres who destroyed nature without thought or care. Westerners seek to dominate and oppress, that’s simple history. And those who live in harmony can’t stand a chance against this planetary disease. The disease has fully won out; in that those we’ve long oppressed are no longer victims but have become militarized and dangerous because of their utter disenfranchisement. When you have nothing to lose, including your life—thus the suicide bomber—you are the most dangerous weapon on earth. Your human life hasn’t been valued, nor that of your ancesters, for how many decades, centures, eons….so why would you value other human life? It’s wrong, but it’s not simple black and white.

Can we ever get back to this garden. I don’t think easily. I think not willingly. Greed is to prevalent. There are Koch brothers. Do they think they are immortal, these people, funding hate and intolerance? They are Faustian characters who cannot take It with them. Why are there those who seek to ruin the planet. And how can we be kind and be strong? We have seen peace-loving cultures wiped from the face of the planet or turned into terrorist warmongers. How can we be compassionate and not be vulnerable. It’s not as simple as saying go to war or stay out of war. Invade or pull out. Because there are no more hawks and doves. We are all, now, hawks and doves, even if only by perception. The Syrian refugee is now seen as a potential threat—although there is nobody who really believes this to be true; the right side of the aisle just know that creating fear wins support in political campaigns. Never mind the poor suffering people fleeing Syria and Isis in fear for their lives. In their flight, they are showing the kind of reslience as witnessed here in the image of the native American. They are meant to be helped and saved not feared and imprisoned in camps.

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We often describe Scorpio people as having x-ray vision, so it’s no surprise that An X-Ray Photograph is a symbol found within this sign at 25°. Indeed Scorpios, as a rule, don’t take things on face value; they like to know what lies beneath. This image is about understanding the structural factors in all existence. This degree of the zodiac would seem to empower people in this way. It’s about seeing how everything is basically the same at the core. Its akin to understanding the Golden Mean or making linkes between the microcosmic and macrocosmic worlds, what underlies all manifestations of life. We are urged to focus our minds eye on what the framework for everything is. If we read this oracle against the previous image: we can see this as the process of digesting the great revelations. We need to internalize our knowledge and apply it to our own lives, taking a long look at what makes us tick, too. Again not much to say on this oracle either. It may be me, but I’m just not being triggered these last couple times.

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It would seem that today’s image is about the denouement or fall-out after a peak experience. After Having Heard An Inspired Individual Deliver His “Sermon On The Mount,” Crowds Are Returning Home is the Sabian Symbol du jour. How to assimilate amazing information into our daily lives? That is what is delivered to us at Scorpio 24°, which would be ruled by Virgo in a twelve-fold sequence. As befits that sign, which rules digestion, we are being given a lot to chew on. What do we do with, and how do we fully process, transformational information; how do we let it change our daily consciousness. Really that’s all this is all about. I don’t have more to say about it.

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A Rabbit Metamorphoses Into A Nature Spirit is the symbol at 23° Scorpio and, without having read anything about it, I feel I love it. I have a thing for rabbits. I think it’s related to being a Libra. I often think Librans look like rabbits. I think I do. I love Bugs Bunny. I know, who doesn’t; but I really do. I love his mix of macho and fey. Why hasn’t Warner Brothers done something great with the Bugs brand. I’m sure they will. Everything happens eventually. Except a sequel to Bridesmaids, which should be called Bridesmaids Revisited. But Kristin Wiig won’t make the movie. She has too much class, apparently. I don’t know her. She doesn’t look like a rabbit. She’s a Leo. She looks like a starving lioness. But I digress.

What about this image? Well on the surface it is about the raising of animal drives to a higher level; but the real deal here is the concept of Transubstantiation, which is specifically that process by which the wafer and wine become the body and blood of Christ, not just symbols thereof. So the rabbit, which we know fucks like one, represents the sexual and procreative urge, another basely animal-human one akin to the agression of yesterday with those innocent sitting ducks as a target of murderous intent. But we can transubstantiate these elements of human self into something higher, represented by the nature spirit. We can literally become another being. The nature spirit guides living things, like the rabbit. The rabbit’s libidinous nature might be determined by the nature spirit who was once that rabbit. In our circles, in our circles.

Given the Scorpio assignation of this oracle, I can’t not think of this as a metaphor for death, which, according to our astrology, doesn’t exist—there is only regeneration as nothing has a beginning or an end, all things being cyclical. The Zodiac is a wheel after all. I have mused, since childhood, on the notion that this life is one big cocoon experience. That death is truly an illusion. It is just us leaving the cocoon. The so-called grizzling process of aging being the outward signs of our readying, as a chrysalis, to shed our skin or leave the cocoon; and when we do we are made of stuff so fine and etheric that our former human fellows can’t perceive us. Can the caterpillar conceive of or witness the butterfly. I don’t think so, gr. So, yes, we associate words like regeneration and transformation with the sign of Scorpio, but what about this transubstantiation jazz. I like it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to try to YouTube Bugs Bunny as a manicurist. “I meet so many monsters….soak, please.”

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The dreaded shadow side of synchronicity…I reluctantly fished for the Sabian Symbol associated with Scorpio 22° after the tragedy of last night: Hunters Shooting Wild Ducks, the keynote of which is the socially accepted release of an individual’s or a group’s aggressive instincts. I am treading lightly: Like it or not, for a large part of society, made up of groups and individuals, last night’s bloodbath was not only acceptable it was favorable. For those on our societal side of the fence, innocent victims were indeed sitting ducks. We say with bravado that we won’t be affected by terrorism, but we are. Who in Paris today is sitting outside in a café without some kind of pit in their stomach. I’m sure people in Rome and Barcelona and Munich and Prague and London and New York and just about anywhere are feeling similarly.

The symbol today is meant to be about the socialization of primitive instincts into an acceptable ritual. Again, what happened in France yesterday, or in Beirut this past week, or (fill in terrorist target site here) is condoned and celebrated by a great many people; we cannot avoid that fact. It is seen by some as retaliation for attrocities that are much worse. We don’t see it that way. But to some people, Friday night revellers at a restaurant or sports match or music concert are the enemy because they are enjoying themselves, seemingly unawares or uncaring toward the plight of a long put-upon slide of the human population. That’s not how I see it; but I can’t deny that’s how some people, and surely those who perpetrated this massacre, do. I’m loath to say that just as seasonal animal hunting is an accepted and approved channel for masculine aggression (because really they are not hunting wild ducks for survivial) killing westerners is likewise a socially smiled upon, increasingly ritualized endeavor for the suicide-bombing would-be-martyr sector of society. That slice of society may be small; but it’s big enough to do the kind of damage we saw yesterday or on 911 or in Madrid in 2004 or just about anywhere and worse. I’m so angry not just at the terrorists or at the chain of western and middle-eastern countries and leaders who suppressed a people to the point of this sort of sick, violent militarism; I’m also angry at the finger pointers who jump on social media to condemn the west, from their cozy apartments in New York and London, as the leading culprits. This is not your opportunity to grandstand how fucking liberal you are. It makes me nuts.

There is no answer. There are only questions. But I do think it would be helpful to follow the money. Greed is always at the root of all evil. I think, if we able to follow the money, that which has armed ISIS and other militant groups, we might be very surprised where that trail leads. Paris will never be the same. New York has never been the same. The world is not the same. And it doesn’t help to lament it. Real change is needed, not sentimental remember-when journeys down East 10th Street in the late 1970s. I have nothing to add to the conversation, but there is much to take away.

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Obeying His Conscience, A Soldier Resists Orders is the symbol at 21° Scorpio. It depicts a readiness to face the results of a refusal to follow the authoritarian patterns of an aggressive society. As we find ourselves engaged in activities that are traditional to our world culture, we often come to a crossroads between our individual value system, prescribed by our conscience, and the external expectations, demands, put upon us by society. Fittingly, this oracle is ruled by Gemini in a twelve-fold sequence. That sign, governed by Mercury, named for the spritely god of the crossroads, is hinged on duality. But, you say, we’ve just broken through duality—I’ve been reading your Blague. Ah, but there is always another crossroads, crux, crisis to face as we upwardly spiral along the path of the Zodiac. This is an obvious image in the sense that we understand that war, a move of mass consiousness/delusion, puts demands on an individual soldier who might suddenly sprout a hibiscus from his gun barrel. But let’s extend our minds beyond the symbol to find more scope, shall we?

Wherever you or I take a stand against the traditional tide, we know there will be consequences. At the very least we will be labelled a subversive—ah, now that’s a Scorpio word we can hang our hat on. Whether as conscientious objector, rebel or revolutionary, we will be spurned and outlawed. Robin Hood is the perfect example of the Gemini-Scorpio construct and, if you’ve read your Sextrology, you’d know that he is a prime Gemini male archetype, a mercurial character akin to Puck, Peter Pan, Jack Sparrow or other such flighty (winged) men in green tights. He saw injustice and went underground, the Geminian spirit being rebellious and rogue and ringleading. But Scorpio deepens that underground element. We aren’t swinging around on principles; we are dissenting from a deeply spiritual place whereby we are prepared to make the ultimate surrender of our ego-less nature and sacrifice our self to the cause, knowing, that we shall make the force of that resistence all the stronger. This is some serious Obi Wan shit.

All powerful society finds it isn’t so when faced with individuals who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. And really, isn’t the soldier already prepared to do that for the society bent on war? So, is this simply not a shift in sacrifice to Peace instead. Peace and personal liberty. Because even the society, to which the soldier is in endentured service, cannot lay claim to his soul-conscience, which is ever free. We are always free so long as we have slain our ego and fear of some terrible consequence (death?) which awaits us beyond the velvet veiled chamber of Persephone enthroned in Pluto’s undercastle. We are always free to follow our conscience wherever it leads. If it leads to dire consequence that shall only serve to solidify the bonds of fellow like minds yet living. Scorpio is always about merger, solidarity—its fixed-water assignation is a crystalization of feeling, desire. True desire, to my mind, is a divine principality deep within us; real estate owned by the All that has a stake in us from whence it can work its magical goodness. Why else would we feel conflict within ourselves—our worldly want to be safe and survive can often be in conflict with this greater divine calling of desire/destiny; the Gemini twins are one mortal one divine, the ultimate duality between what will save my temporal skin and what will serve our eternal soul.

We can, all of us, at every moment express our true individuality by living in that principality of true desire, that which is the goodness of the Universe seeking Peace, pressing on our conscience to, simply, do the next right thing.

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Today, at Scorpio 20° we see that A Woman Draws Away Two Dark Curtains Closing The Entrance To A Sacred Pathway. I know what’s going on here. This image would be ruled by Taurus in a twelve-fold sequence—as Scorpio’s so-called opposite sign they have much in common, the former sign ruling the throat and neck which, holistically, correlate with one’s nether regions, the former’s motto being I have and the latter’s, Scorpio’s, being We have, material possession and psychic possession being their respective keynotes. Having removed egocentricism from our psyches, we perceive a morality, indeed an existence, beyond duality. We are we. We have always been we. One with each other, environment, the universe. All is vibration and we are One with the All. Faith is the woman within, “rooted in the deepest intutions of the soul” (Dane Rudhyar). Fear is anathema to the true mystic’s life which, beyond Libran union, is based on Scorpion unity. The sign rules the occult, which really only means what is hidden from us. Here we are again, in the unseen world; and metaphorically speaking, it is entered into through the cosmic female’s woo-woo. Surely we are in the territory of the Eleusian Mysteries which entail a ritual dying of oneself. Our Taurus friend Andre Gregory in My Dinner With Andre, describes this ritual happening (in the Hamptons no less) whilst he also explores the imagery, meaning and archetype of the Minotaur. (We told him: You can’t escape your archetype, Andre!)

Ah but the courage it takes to step into the darkness. I remember, nigh on my confirmation into the Catholic Church, how we and fellow initiates were whisked away for a day (or overnight?) to some Catholic retreat place—there’s a name for these places you often see on hills as you whizz by on a highway, but I can’t remember what they’re called. Anyway, I remember being led, blindfolded, through the darkness of this place’s basement along with other sweaty adolescents full of trepidation and utter boredom; and I suppose it must be a vestige left over from some pre-christian original Eleusian ritual; although, even if I had there wherewithall, I doubt the robed Franciscan brothers guiding me through the gauntlet would have appreciated my interpretation that we were inside the great mother goddesses’ mystical box. Something tells me, however, that, if I could go back in time, my saying so to Brother Whosit would inspire just the right kind of fear that might have been associated with the once ritual death and rebirth ritual of the Elusians. Because really, that’s what we are talking about here.

When it comes to actual sex one might say a man can find rebirth and regeneration in the offspring he might find conceived by that great, receptive female. Metaphorically, the true mystic comes to realize, in facing death, that it is only fear that is killed and that he is reborn as a new self that is fully unified with the power of the divine feminine, “the woman within.” Now we may all know many a man whose woman within has been without much of the time; but we aren’t talking about any other form of transformation (another key Scorpion world) that which is had by the endowment of spiritual, mystical power. We can entertain the notion of transcending death; but can we live the concept fully. Can we understand that we are going to be here for all time; and that means all of our actions, and even our thoughts, will constantly, ultimately catch up with us. The Libra, with her Scales, weighs the consciousness of each of us, the emblem of what is Karmic law; but Scorpio delivers the verdict—it is Persephone who decides your Fate based on the life you lived. You make your own heaven or hell. And you’re going to have to live with it for the rest of eternity. So go ahead, make your next move. The spider is watching and waiting.

Postscript: You have heard us say the Scarlett O’Hara is a personification of all things Scorpio Female. And you do remember out of which she made her velvet gown? Yeah.

I saw it in the wind-a, and I just had to have it.

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You’ve heard me mention that the sign of Scorpio goes beyond Libra concept of “union” (Venus) to that of “merger” (Mars-Pluto). The sign rules sleep, sex, death (all falling under the notion of regeneration—the eighth sign of the zodiac is a nod to the 8-shaped lemniscate, a symbol of infinity—death, like sleep and sex, not signalling an end but a new beginning–good news, right?) In sleep we merge with our subconscious, if not a collective one; in sex we merge with another being; in death we merge with the All. Over the past three symbols we have seen how the surrender of the ego, an obstacle to be removed, allows for communion with the all-creative divine. So it might seem at first like a let down that today’s symbol at Scorpio 19° is A Parrot Repeats The Conversation He Has Overheard. And yet, there is deep meaning here. If we are an open channel through which the divine might give voice then we are, all of us, as creatives, repeating what we’ve heard. How many times have you heard an artists say of their best work that it seemed to come through them? In the best sense, we would all seek to be the parrot automatically channeling what we, too, have “heard”. Angels we have heard on high.

When we make such a connection, “Uhura, open a channel,” we become a conduit for transmission. Now the first thing we think of is that the information is flowing from the divine (within or on high) through us into the seen world. Remember Scorpio rules the unseen. But maybe this is a two way street? The notion that we beings embody the consciousness through which the Universe might perceive itself? Ah. Now that just sounds a bit spooky doesn’t it. For we just then seem like upward-standing moveable hairs, sensors, on one little planet, feelers via which a blind inner unseen and unseeing universe might have some notion of itself. Makes you feel almost a bit used, doesn’t it. And yet it connotes that we are not separate from the Universe—and, really how can we be. Grow up. Still, let’s go back to the one-way street notion of creativity working through us, information working through us, genius working through us, our being a means of transmission from the inside out. Could it be that we possess this power of channelship? I know my answer to that. Could it be that people who, in their astrological charts, have this particular degree of Scorpio accessessed or highlighted in this way, have more more potential in this area? I dunno, but I’m going to keep on eye on that. Just as I’m going to keep an eye on all 360° of the zodiac and add this Sabian Symbol wisdom into my practice with clients.

I do believe we all have the capacity to transmit transcendental knowledge. And that the person who lives in a sustained state of Faith has more capacity than others. I do believe that there is knowledge and wisdom that transcends our normal, organic, brain capacity for understanding it. That’s why it’s called transcendental. Those who learn to still their minds surely have more capacity to hear the utterances of the All because, hello, they are listening. This is how superhuman realizations come to be. This is why DaVinci or Einstein could “come up” with things just be staring at a wall. Because they weren’t just staring. They were channeling, my people. Godz isn’t watching us from a distance—godz is watching through us from inside and yes godz is talking a mile a minute. [The invention of this new word godz to refer, lower-casedly, to the divine as both singular entity and plural pantheon just happened here] I believe the best poetry, especially, is channeled. Songs. Physics. Math. Chemistry. Comedy. Choreography. Invention. Philosophy. Puppet shows. All of it. The genius depends on how far out of the way you can get this divine expression happening through youz.

Can you shut the ef up and listen? On the other hand, I know, I have friends and colleagues and clients who feel they are too open a channel. My question to you is: Can you discriminate. Either way you have to allow, without fear, and in full Faith. There is nothing abnormal nor is there anything sinister in being an open channel. Fear of being too open is still anathema to Faith which you must go full into; there may be a glut of divine conversation you’re blocking and, at first, you may be flooded when you release into Faith. But soon that flood will become a flow, and sometimes a trickle—the trick is to express what you’re hearing as much as you can when those floodgates open. I know, I’ve been there. It can seem overwhelming, but you can literally work it out. And don’t be confused by what is the ego pretending its been surrendered acting like the divine voice. That is the real trickster. Just as the ego-mind would sometimes have you believe you are the source of true genius, it will also pretend to be the true divine source and that can be confusing. That means you need even sharper skills of discrimination. You truly do know when it is you are the means and when you are the end. When you are truly channeling higher intelligence(s), you might feel happily overwhelmed and unable to record all you’re “hearing”. When it is your ego pretending to be that higher voice, you will feel frustrated, forced, edgy, alone and maybe afraid. The one thing that a truly open channel will learn ya: You are not alone.

Ethel to Tilly, Ethel to Tilly…Come in, Tilly; Over

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At Scorpio 18° we come upon A Path Through Woods Brilliant With Multicolored Splendor. It serves of a reminder that even though we can feel as if we are lost in the woods of our experience that there is always an illuminated path. We must look at where we came from to understand that we have arrived where we are intact. We mustn’t project fear ahead of us or else we will dim our vision. The path is illuminated already. I love this as a Scorpio image simply for the fact that it can be read literally, that the multicoloring are the leaves of the season. That can be enough because, though this is they outwardly “dying time” of the year, death appears to our eyes as a beautiful, yes, splendid thing. This image is meant to suggest the exaltd feeling of a work well done and a truly consummated life; and though that might ring true I think it is misleading; because chances are you’re thinking “oh I wish that were true for me,” when the point is: it is.

It all depends on how you judge consummation.

The pregnant woman in the former image was fecunded by her own spirit and this resulted in a consummation. The image symbolically suggested the surrender of the ego and to the inner divine-creative, for which we are but vessels, that can work and live through us. This is the very definition of a transpersonal experience. The exaltation of this image doesn’t stem from the size of your house or bankroll—exaltation cannot stem from these things, which are solely valued by ego and are limited, falling short, finite with no eternal quality or payoff for enrichment. Allowing ourselves to be vehicles for divine-creative expression however provides ultimate exaltation, though we can neither seek nor claim credit. Today’s image is ruled by Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence and we have moved from yesterday’s Transpersonal expression to actual Transfiguration. We have achieved supreme serenity via Pisces siren call and have let our ego drown, dissolve, into the sea of nothingness so that we might emerge to see the world in its true, magical form of multicolored brilliance. Indeed we might see how the world radiates around us in reaction to what state of mind-soul we are in; and not only strictly metaphorically.

I find our path is illuminated when we don’t seek to impose any requirements for our (ego) happiness on the world, safe in the knowledge that we are fine and have come this far. Imagine, now, if we can move forward with the Capricorn-ruled Faith, smiling in recognition of the loving, warm experiences and relationships we are given, letting Aquarius-ruled Grace to fill us to the point of pregnancy of all possibility, allowing ourselves to be vehicles for the divine-creative, surrendering to transpersonal experience, thus generated true transfiguration, not just of what is growing deep inside us but of the metaphysical world around us which is resplendent in its potential relationship to our capital-S Selves.

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A Woman, Fecundated By Her Own Spirit, Is “Great With Child” is the symbol for Scorpio 17°, ruled by Aquarius in a twelve-fold sequence. Yesterday we explored the smile, and evoked the image of Mona Lisa, whom, many have suspected was pregnant. The link between the smile—an expression of rising feelings of warmth—and the literal or figurative pregnancy (with child or possibility) is clear and rather seamless. The smile is outward, but it points to something much greater happening within. “Fecundated By Her Own Spirit” is an interesting turn of phrase, even in the context of these symbols. We are not necessarily speaking of the procreative spirit but the purely creative one, whatever form that takes. Mona Lisa is not unlike Persephone on her throne. She is serene and puzzling to the objective viewer; but I believe it’s because her focus is inward. The actual pregnant woman is a perfect symbol of inner gaze—life an indeed evolution is an inside job and it happens through us by the grace of our own divine spirit. Yesterday’s smile was an expression of the recognition, and Faith in, the divine. Today the divine has become concretized in human form. We are no longer just creatures, we are the parents of the living god and the gateway to, what Rudhyar calls, “creative mutations”, which, if you’ve ready anything we’ve ever said about the energy of Aquarius, you would know this is perfectly fitting.

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