In contrast to it’s opposite sign of Gemini, focused as it is on the immediate (both in time and space) Sagittarius is far-sighted. And at 19° of the sign we find Pelicans Menaced By The Behavior And Refuse of Men Seek Safer Areas For Bringing Up Their Young. And yes we are the pelicans. And those of us concerned with the future, do need to discover new ways of living and a devise a plan to make our biosphere more healthy and wholesome. It is not just the environment that is being polluted, though, it is the minds and feelings of new generations who have become desensitized to media pollutants as well. Again there isn’t much meaning here beyond the obvious. We need to come up with a plan for survival because we are killing ourselves, and each other, and taking many if not ultimately all the other species with us. Meanwhile I don’t think our future vision will serve us; that is to say I don’t think we will have the capability of meaningfully inhabiting another planet before we destroy this one. But you know what don’t worry about it. There are far more important things. Just look at what people are tweeting about and liking and promoting. Surely, we care more about what same people got a Golden Globe nomination or what new fashion collection some hyped, auto-tuned pop star is launching. Are we so blind that we don’t even see how we have been made pawns in our own destruction. Did you know the pelican, obviously chosen for this oracle for this very reason, will give its young parts of its own flesh and blood to keep it alive in times of dearth. Well guess what this is is a time of dearth. What are you going to do about it?

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Children Playing On The Beach, Their Heads Protected By Sunbonnets is the symbol for Sagittarius 18°, ruled by Virgo in a twelve-fold sequence. It speaks to the protection that our culture affords us as we become accustomed to powerful energies in our unconscious. Sagittarius rules philosophy and religion which can spoonfeed and contextualize heady concepts to us within the framework of existing traditions; and Virgo is all about slowly digesting and adapting to change. Culture provides a context and protection from what forces would otherwise blow our minds—the sun and sea in this image represent powerful forces, masculine and feminine, that have the power to uplift and inspire us but also to burn and drown us. Religious and cultural institutions are often focused on the young, acting as protective agencies to keep them from becoming lost. However, their tendency toward rigidity and hypocrisy will undermine this aim.

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Today’s musing will be quick because the Symbol is an obvious one: An Easter Sunrise Service Draws A Large Crowd is the image at Sagittarius 17°, ruled by Leo in a twelve-fold sequence. And it simply deals with the fact that we assign our religious ritual holidays to natural events that occur at specific times of year. Easter is the Christian way of celebrating the natural rebirth of Spring. It really is that simple. Mankind has always wanted the psychic human equivalent of such marvelous natural events as Spring.

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Sea Gulls Fly Around A Ship In Expectation Of Food is the Sabian Symbol at 16° Sagittarius which is ruled by Cancer in a twelve-fold sequence and, as we’ve seen with that premier water sign, associated with flood myths like that of Noah and his ark, the sea and ships often coincide with Cancer’s rulership, providing me personal validation for inferring this simple twelve-fold sequence. But there is more to this symbol than meets the eye. We are dealing with nature being made subservient to human dominion.

Just as those animals, two by two, were dependent upon Noah to shuttle them into a new delivered state of existence, the sea gulls in this image (and everywhere, because this is true enough) would rather be dependent upon what scraps the ship might cast overboard than pursue their natural process of hunting for food. We see here how man has a tendency to pervert nature, not just within our own species, but how our very existence alters the natural course and balance of things. The symbolism here is that the gulls represent normal, “wild” energies of the human soul, our psychic sensitivity, you might say; which all too easily attaches, and becomes dependent, upon external, social circumstances, if not corruptive social circles. If the sea represents the (collective) unconscious, then the byproduct of our human tampering, fishing around, within that realm can alter our instincts, making them dysfunctional and codependent. In other words, tampering with our psyches—or having them tampered with, may result in some form or other of trauma, compulsion or other such alteration in our natural state of mind and being.

We know the benefits of socialized limits, but we must also be aware of the social disease that stems from a system that doesn’t require self-reliance, even if it is a proponent for it. As strong as (our) nature is, it all too readily becomes subservient to the human collective trend toward domination of the planet and subjugation of the natural world.

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Why, you may ask, is the symbol for Sagittarius 15°, coinciding with December 6, The Ground Hog Looking For Its Shadow On Ground-Hog Day, February 2, which would be ruled by Gemini, in a twelve-fold sequence. I don’t know. I’m sure it’s metaphorical. I doubt that Elsie Wheeler thought she was assigning this image to an Aquarian Sabian Symbol (February 2 falls in Aquarius). I can’t have all the answers, you know. I do know this (because I read about it): Today’s symbol is about “the value of anticipating new turns of events and ascertaining future prospects.

I know someone who today experienced a new turn of events. I suppose because she did it effects me too. But, otherwise, it’s just very Sagittarian, the archer, to project into the distance/future, while the shadow side of doing so would be called getting ahead of yourself. (I was pulled away and several hours passed) And now I’ve had my own sudden change of events, a redirect if you will, life all being in the editing. And I fully comprehend the reason dual Gemini rules this oracle. If we are projecting, with anticipation, into the future, basically there are two outcomes: the desired one (the ground hog doesn’t see his shadow and spring is nigh) or the other one(s). If we are waiting on a decision, ’twill either be the result we want—a Yes—which is specific, or a the other outcome—a No—but, as we tell clients all the time: no is yes. No is actually a wide open field of other possibilities; and we are thankful to the No because it tells us that our desired outcome was only half a connection. You see we want our desire (our part in the equation) to match our destiny (the universe’s part).

Sagittarius, whose motto is “I see” as well as “I understand”, being the so-called opposite sign of Gemini, sees beyond the duality of either or to tertiary outcomes that incorporate both sides of the equation. It is a third-eye vision that has some practical applications in life. As Stella and I say: “it is this or something better.” So we plan for all inevitabilities, in a sense, knowing that a closed door hastens us further down the corridor of life to our desired goal. It is what is called an “eonic” view that is to say we are thinking and planning beyond the immediate, “event consciousness” of Gemini whose shadow side always needs some buzz from happenstance, and taking a longer perspective, one of prospective, seeing what native Americans called “the long body”, thus eonic visioning. That’s the superpower of Sagittarian archers to see beyond the immediate and imagine any number of fields of experience that span time.

So if the ground hog sees its shadow we have another six weeks of what was the supposed undesired outcome? No. We are willing to imagine that field of time/space as being ripe with ultimate potential and opportunity. We, too, will “go back in” and focus more on interior work, knowing that there is more internal development to be had before we bust out into the world with our plans and projects. We are grateful for what might be a grace period for perfecting our visions, for crossing all our t’s and dotting all our i’s.

Incidentally, the groundhog was given the name “Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary.” Just remember, the weather within never changes!

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Yesterday, with the widow image, we dealt with leftover vestiges of the past (karma) coming to light, being carried over, into a new era—both on the individual and universal levels. Today, at Sagittarius 14° we are confronted with The Great Pyramid And The Sphinx, which are also enigmatic vestiges of the past that have endured from a previous age, into our present, carrying with them mystery and meaning. They are ruled by the sign of Taurus which is strangely fitting. You see an “age” lasts about two thousand and some odd years—we roll backwards through the Zodiac due to what is called the precession of the equinoxes, so we are leaving the Piscean age and moving into the Aquarian. The Piscean age started around the time of Christ’s birth—the Jesus Fish. Before that was the age of Aries, the Ram, associated with Abraham who sacrificed a sheep in lieu of his son, Isaac. Before that was the age of Taurus, biblically associated with worship of the golden calf, and it was during the Taurean age, around 2560 B.C.E. the date when both the Great Pyramid and Sphinx were meant to have been built.

These structures serve as “quasi-divine Custodians” or “Seed-men” of a previous cycle of existence, harkening to a time of and belief in traditions “based on the perfect knowledge of the archetypal principles and forms which underlie all manifestations of life on this Earth (and by extension…the cosmos)” which, and you know I believe this, are still deeply rooted in our consciousnesses. We have unwitting archetypal knowledge which still forms a foundation upon which we can build solid and valid formulations—what we call “discovery” most times is really uncovery. We possess arcane knowledge and we can still access it if we try, through ancient, traditional methods; and in so doing we can meet the challenges of the future. There is a spiritual, ancestral power which has been preserved and transported over the ages and though it exists in esoteric form—mostly written upon the stars of our subconscious, we can retrieve and utilize it, with proper guidance and patient determination. It is not just karma (of our misdeeds) that is carried with us from incarnation to incarnation; it is also the grand Soul’s wisdom, in which we all share, that finds access in and through us.

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A Widow’s Past Brought To Light at Sagittarius 13°, ruled by the sign of Aries in a twelve-fold sequence, is about “the karma of past actions as it affects opportunities presented by a new cycle.” So right there we are on the money with the first sign of the Zodiac, Aries, begininng a new cycle. We are all widows, metaphorically speaking. We have all been passed out of the past, our former relationship with the world (and many its inhabitants) dead to us. I think on this theme often because I have not always been this perfect being I am now (ahem) hard to believe I know. We all have burned bridges and I find that most of mine were bridges I should never have built in the first place. But I am aware of how karma (which is always about relationships by the way) of the past can impact present opportunities and yet I find it narrows down the field of those who would celebrate as opposed to tolerate you. We have a friend who puts it in these terms: that people are either drains or they’re radiators. I can safely say that 99 and 44/100th % of my karmic impasses of the past were with drains not radiators. Like I often say, if you’re going to have enemies (and you shouldn’t) at least make sure that they’re really bad people. There are many adages that fit here: To be great is to be misunderstood. What other people think about you is none of your business. All under the heading: Nothing is personal. So yes maybe past karma had impacted present opportunities, but let us cast this in a positive light and say: Always in a positive fashion, helping to narrow your vision and make your targets ever more specific so you can hit those marks.

We don’t know what the widow did or didn’t do. All we know that when the “married” phase of her life ended, the ramifications of that life didn’t end there but followed her into a new cycle. Sound familiar. We tend to repeat our patterns because they are our patterns. But we can be conscious of making changes in new phases. That’s what’s key here to me. For it often takes the conclusion of a cycle to really realize what it was all about—hindsight being 20/20 and so forth—I ‘m just filled with aphorisms today. But really, our consciousness can see and absorb and process experience much more clearly in retrospect. While it’s happening it’s often not so easy, because the information that comes in is often mixed. (Information is the provenance of Gemini’s buzzy “mutable air” and, by nature dual.) Yesterday, in the image ruled by Pisces (remember before the discovery of Neptune the sign was ruled by Jupiter) we saw Zeus/Jupiter’s totem eagle soaring to such heights that it could be the first to witness a new dawn and joyously herald it from high above the stresses of life, but the new day (new cycle) mightn’t be as fresh as all that but loaded and weighted and shadowed by unfinished business of the previous day (read: cycle). Dane Rudhyar takes this a step further to extend the metaphor of the day to read not just as a new cycle in an individual life but the new cycle in terms of the ages: “Mankind is ‘the widow,'” he says, “because our soon-to-be-concluded Piscean Age has buried most of the ideals it once revered and proclaimed; yet the New Age will have to deal with many oppressive ghosts.” I think we’re feeling that just about now, humanity, what do you say? Retribution, the marker of this oracle, seems to be at hand. And there are many bad widows out there who are so damned dangerous because, my friends, they’ve got nothing to lose.

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After the return to the body and the powerful wisdom of the organism that is us, we are immediately shifting into the soaring manifestation of our noblest ideals. Really? Already? That’s all I get? One day of shutting my mind off, aided by watching paint dry I mean “The Wiz”. And now, at Sagittarius 12° A Flag Turns Into An Eagle; The Eagle Into A Chanticleer Saluting The Dawn. The Flag, and symbol Eagle, are surely pointing at America whose most noblest characteristics establish it as a cradle of new civilization if not New Age spiritualism. I have to point to yet another polarizing, but skeptically I imagine fleeting, conversation on gun control. The 2nd ammendment was in response to the British banning dissenting colonists from having muskets; it was not intended to insure that paranoid, right-week, extremist nutjob American terrorists could own AK47s so we need to shut that shit down once and for all and repeal the 2nd ammendment. That is my bid for soaring manifestation of noblest ideals.

In addition to being the symbol of America, the eagle is the totem of Zeus, Jupiter, the name sake of the ruling planet of Sagittarius. Just as the archer can hit a target he can barely see, the eagle can soar so high that it is the first to glimpse the dawn. This is why, in this image, he turns into the chanticleer which is just a fancy name for a crowing rooster. In the fable of the Chanticleer, the rooster thought he wasn’t just heralding the dawn but that his crowing brought it about. That’s interesting. Are we, in our noblest visions, mere heralds of the dawning of the new age—note that yesterday I cited Eos, goddess of the dawn as an Aquarian archetype—or are we the creators of it by virtue of our vision? It’s a rhetorical question; don’t expect me ot have all the answers. I can say this: that there is still an a combined ideological-emotional place in my psyche where I can isolate a vision of America as the great hope for humanity akin to what those founding Aquarians Washington and Jefferson, especially had in mind (we will let alone the theory that Jefferson was visited upon and helped by an alchemist, perhaps Saint Germain, which explains the drafting of The Declaration of Independence in a matter of days if not mere hours). There is still that noblest spark of highest principle not to be confused with the forced patriotism that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and that true axis of evil concocted to enter us into a war of profiteering and the eroding of American civil liberties. Those devils are cunning. But they are no match for the angels.

In a way, today’s oracle, ruled by Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence, is about certain “annunciation”; now that just means announcement, something the dawn and the rooster make daily. But the famous annunciation, of course, is that of the angel Gabriel coming unto Mary to announce her conception of the christ child. Again, we have to wonder, if Gabriel wasn’t the agent of the pregancy, not just the herald. Blasphemy I know. But we are speaking metaphorically here. Even the word herald means both messanger but also foregoer. I think we are both creatures and creators of new dawns and the paradox inherent in this oracle is to be milked for all its worth. Sure you can keep sharing your thoughts on social media or you can actually be the change, the dawn. It’s not enough to wish that the gun laws were changed, you have to change them or else you continue to suffer the consequences. We cannot have foresaw the damage the 2nd ammendment would bring two hundred and forty years ago. But we have to accept the reality of what we are living now and we have to be willing to break with the past—it’s not tradition it’s trauma—and live in a new world with new rules for new hope and happiness.

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Given we’re in the sign of psychedelic Sagittarius, I was waiting and hoping for a trippy oracle and here we go: In The Left Section Of An Archaic Temple, A Lamp Burns In a Container Shaped Like A Human Body is the symbol at 11° Sagittarius. It is, in fact, all about getting back into your body after going to far out with your mind, so it’s on theme if not a bit inverted, with what I was expecting. We are being asked to count on the wisdom of our physical selves—I often discuss physical intelligence with clients, reminding them that the body “knows” how to do things like circulate blood and fight infection and digest food, things, which if it were up to our minds to handle would certainly end in ultimate failure. We can know too much. And we can be held hostage by our intellect and concepts of quantatitive value. Yesterday we saw opportunity and abundance. Today we are saying that enough is enough and that food for thought can be super fattening. We must not only decompress at times but actually decondition ourselves. Ruled by Aquarius in a twelve-fold sequence we are looking at the Waterbearer’s effect on our own rejuvenation and necessary rebirthing and individuation. Especially in this day and age when we are so plugged into collective thought, via technology—perhaps we don’t realize how much mass thought is infiltrating. We do need to unplug.

I think of my very niche generation as being caught in something of a balance. Stella is convinced we are a kind of lost generation. We grew up changing television channels manually without so much as an answering machine, going out to play for three hours after school without parents having a clue of your whereabouts or shenanigans; we typed papers on electric typewriters, using white-out or corecto-cartridges to fix our mistakes. I studied abroad and would send my parents postcards or, every once in a while, wait for a telephone booth at a post office. In summer, from the time I was seven, I would just be out somewhere in our tiny New Jersey beach town; it’s like our parents had inherited their ancestors insouciance about child mortality or something. Point is, it was a very anonymous time. The millennials know nothing of this. They grew up pressing buttons and going on scheduled playdates. They have helicopter parents and obsessive gaming addictions, cellphones, earphones, headphones, iphones. How do you unplug from consumerist mass conciousness if you’re part Borg? I guess you become a steampunk, opening a donut or honey or vinegar shop and dressing like you just walked out of the pages of a Jules Verne novel. Luckily I still remember what it was like not being a reliant on quantitative values. Nonconformity was the norm, especially for a happy social self-impelled outcast such as myself.

Of course there is a meaning closer to home than the one I’m attaching to this symbol. The original Greek cupbearer is Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera (Jupiter and Juno); and she basically kept all the gods dosed with nectar that was the source of the eternal youth, if not life. She is, indeed, goddess of youth. Like other Aquarian female archetypes, like Iris, goddess of the rainbow (how Aquarian?) and Eos, goddess of the dawn (likewise), Hebe is romantically linked with a human or, in her case, a demi-god, Heracles (meaning glory of Hera)—it’s best to remember that Hebe, though a goddess in her own right, is also Hera in her maiden aspect. All this high-minded mythological mumbo jumbo to say that this degree of the zodiac is about recuperation and getting in touch with the mortal, bodily aspect of self. The soul (or anima, animus) is wedded to the physical body for better or for worse. And your (overactive) mind is not your friend. It will wear you down to the point of exhaustian and even cellular death. As someone who has been burning the menora from both ends, I’m here to tell you that this symbol couldn’t come at a better time for me personally. And it serves as a reminder to all of us. Depending on what planet you might have at this degree of Sagittarius, and how it is aspected by other planets and so forth, your penchant for recuperation might be great or compromised. I for one am ready to get out of my head and into my body. I have afforded myself that luxury for the next five days especially. With our upcoming show at Joe’s Pub written, now is about embodying the words and getting my voice into some semblance of tunefulness. I spend much of my year producing and promoting other people and their shows. My hope is that our friends and fans will turn out for us this December 20 at Joe’s Pub. We are working hard and presenting an entertaining and enlightening program. My only job is to be rested and to do my best and for that I am thankful for today’s oracular reminder of what is at the core of all happiness and success. Chillability.

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Sagittarius and the 9th astrological house are associated with fortune and opportunity. So it is little wonder that A Theatrical Representation of a Golden-Haired Goddess of Opportunity would make a showing here at 10° of the sign. But read carefully. It isn’t the goddess herself but probably a gawdy theatrical representation of her in what is a societal effort at dramatizing the greatness of what civilization has on offer the most ambitious. Better known as the carrot dangling or the brass ring placed just out of reach. Someone with a planet on this degree in their charts is likely extremely ambitious, but they are likely too materially geared. Likewise one might fight people who work in advertising to have this degree highlighed in their charts for it also deals with goading others to spend their time and energy in the pursuit of said worldly achievement. Sadly, this is what is seen as progress to most people. There is a certain propaganda involved here, forcing others to achieve (but probably for ones own gain). This sort of image shows the shadow side of the Sagittarius experience where more is more.

We often, in speaking with clients, hit home the fact that abundance and quantity aren’t the same thing. Not to say one shouldn’t have money or possessions—these are forms abundance can take. But if there is no true abundance at the core things will always feel empty. I have often said that “prosperity is a sustained emotion”; and that is in keeping with this oracle being ruled by Capricorn in a twelve-fold sequence; because Capricorn is faith in abundance, it is the cornucopeia, the goat horn, the container, of plenty. Capricorn, whose motto is “I use” is anti-waste. It knows when enough is enough. It has boundaries that create reserves and resevoirs, saving the bounty for the longhaul, squandering nothing. The energy of Capricorn is equipped to make the most out of the image in this oracle; for it won’t be fooled by imitation. Capricorn highlights quality over quantity and thus we see hope, and yes faith, in what might on the surface be, well, a superficial image that symbolically drives one to excess. We won’t be fooled by the representation of the golden goddess; nor will we prevent it from reminding us that she does truly exist (in us) as it is we who create our own abundance and opportunity via that sustained emotion of prosperity.

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