Things are spicing up after the boring previous symbol. At Capricorn 17° we see A Repressed Woman Finds A Psychological Release In Nudism. Fittingly this is ruled by Aquarius in a twelve-fold sequence. Just as the main archetype of the Aquarian male is (the water bearer) John the Baptist, the female archetype is Salome, of striptease fame. Actually her dance of the seven veils, one for each color of the rainbow, is a nod to her being a “descending goddess” like Iris, goddess of the rainbow, who brings enlightenment to, uplifiting, mankind.

This symbol is hinged on the escape from social restrictions and return to the body. In Aquarian terms, that is called: getting your freak on. The sign of Capricorn is ruled by Saturn, which is also the secondary ruler of Aquarius, Uranus being the primary one. Saturn is about restriction for the sake of keeping a resource pure, this is why even exclusive enclaves, and thus the notion of status, comes into play. Tradition is another quality that seeks to preserve (that which is working about) the past. Uranus is the reformer. It is revolutionary and seeks to break free of any shackles. Tradition, social mores and the like can preserve but also bind. The shedding of the clothing here is the removal of the restrictive elements in our society. Religion (a word that means a re-linking, a re-tying as to the past) have, in particular, created a disconnect between soul and body. Once upon a time sex and religion went hand in hand, fertility rites and sacred harlot-priestesses and the like. Notions of decency and modesty are fairly new additions to our socialized human existence; and most of us find away around these or experience breakthroughs on that score. As the repressed (Saturn-ruled) woman here is.

Funny that nudity would be shocking since it’s the natural state. Still you don’t see me parading around in the buff. Aquarius, the water bearer, is about rebirth, new life. And in a sense getting down to your birthday suit is an expression of renaissance. Nudity is also a plain and simple response to the puritanism of the past, especially that in American society. Jumpcut to nude hippies at Woodstock. That freeing ourselves bodily can be psychologically liberating.

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It looks like the symbol at 16° Capricorn, School Grounds Filled With Boys And Girls In Gymnasium Suits, is pretty straightforward in that it signals the need for physical activity, especially in teen age. Not exactly a sparkler. I even just did some research to see if I’m missing something. Nope. This is just about physical exercise. Apparently, if you have this degree aspected in your chart, you tend to be on the sporty side. I am guessing I do not have a planet in this position. I am reminded that Stella had a gym teacher called Miss Forbush who used to make the girls shower and would check them to make sure they got wet. Forbush. You can’t make this shit up.

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As we circle around to Capricorn 15° we find that In A Hospital, The Children’s Ward Is Filled With Toys. A Sagittarian-ruled symbol that heralds the responsibility of society to ensure the welfare and total health of the new generation. That old chestnut. Sagittarius is the sign of both generosity and generations, in all senses of that word. Today we have the response to the previous symbol’s call for rooting out ills and focusing on traditions that serve humanity. Taking care of the welfare of children is literally that. Our culture has created conditions which may harm children who will carry forward its work and habits and we must seek to repair these conditions through loving care. Beyond the literal, children here symbolize our own intutions and dreams for future growth, that which is stymied by our bad habits which either degrade or dreams or stick us in neutral. It’s helpful to think of the dreamer part of ourself as a child whose care is our responsibility—I’m going to try that adjustment on for size today. We have the power to cure our sick inner children. The toys in this image suggest the creative play in which all of us, in some form or another, wish to engage.

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An Ancient Bas-Relief Carved In Granite Remains A Witness To A Long-Forgotten Culture points to “the will to unearth” that which has value and to “let go of non-essentials. How much more Scorpio, which rules this oracle in a twelve-fold sequence, be. That sign is all about uncovering what lies beneath, whether in our own psychology or in the exposure of that which is culturally hidden or repressed. Yesterday we stared into the fire with our Libran higher consciousness, now we dig deep into the subconcious and subversive. Sometimes we go back into practices of the past, particularly mystery religions and rites to “uncover” that which is lost, to separate out what is useful tradition from that which has become bad cultural habit.

That greed factor we encountered a couple of symbols back—that is the cause of most perversion in our culture. Greed forces new habits and addictions, inflicting them upon the masses. And then there comes a time when the Scorpion element of purge must come into play. We must root out that which is sick in our society and yank it from that dug-in source. We must get down to the spiritual nitty gritty of our experience. This can itself take dangerous form for this is where fundamentalist extremism also comes into play. So we must be careful. In our quest for spiritual perfection, we mustn’t in turn impose ourselves upon others. We don’t want to replace root evil with root evil. We want to weed our own gardens so that we might continue to unfold in the friendly fire of our own spiritual nature. We must have eyes wide open and employ historical perspective so that we don’t repeat negative patterns of the past. This historical perspective can be literally that, on a cultural scale, and also apply to us, personally, as in our own personal history. We know when our habits are perverted and making us sick at our root level. We have to dig down and make it right.

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A Fire Worshiper Meditates On The Ultimate Realities of Existence is the Capricorn 13° symbol that deals with the subjective quest for ultimates beyond the interplay of life and death processes. This is the mark of the mystic or true yogi. Fire not only captures our gaze but our imagination as it symbolizes the mystery of transformation. It is in the metaphorical fire in which our souls are purified. If we survive a trial by fire we have faced death square in the face and have lived to tell about it. This symbol is ruled by Libra in a twelve-fold sequence; the sign of high consciousness. And really what we have here is an “adbenture in consciousness” whereby the occultist moves beyond cultural enjoyment or any passion for accumulation of a data-based knowledge and seeks greater understanding through meditation, which takes us beyond the immediate and temporal, beyond life itself. This is some serious Gandalf the Grey cum White shite.

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Whereas the previous image of the private estate may’ve showcased plants and animals, elements of the natural world, altered by human minds and hands for aesthetic, functional, cultural purposes (ruled by Leo) today we move into the laboratory, at Capricorn 12°, as An Illustrated Lecture On Natural Science Reveals Little-Known Aspects Of Life where we see new processes toward this aim in, well, process. Ruled by the mutable-earth sign of Virgo in a twelve-fold sequence, we see that sign’s rule over alchemy being born out. (It never ceases to amaze me how these symbols seamlessly pick up where the last left off, especially given the fact they were “divined randomly”.) [I am picking up the thread of these Blagues now after days having fallen off my daily writing wagon—wistful, as the last time I wrote these I was rocking on a lovely boat making its way through the Grenadines surrounded by dearest friends…anyway it’s been a difficult reentry] So now we are getting to the nitty gritty of what might constitute our co-creation with god, if not our altering genomes in the process. Indeed the shadow side of the aquisition of knowledge is its exploitation. The fact that research is funded, primarily, by the rich and that it can go hand-in-hand with greed is all too obvious and prevalent.

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At Capricorn 11° we encounter A Large Group Of Pheasant On A Private Estate, the keynote of which is the refinement and propagation of aristocratic values by means of which man participates in the evolution of life toward ever more per feet forms of existence—not exactly the clearest keynote ever. Apparently what we are looking at here is man’s ability to alter, through biological techniques, species found in the wild and, in effect create new ones. We know how this is true with dog breeding. Just last night I discovered that pugs and bulldogs need be delivered of their litters by Cesarean section, something I didn’t know but feel a bit uneasy about. Need to have black labrador retrievers, as a sign of status, also comes to mind. I have had friends who had peacocks on their rather sprawling grounds surrounding their ancient home in France and I’m sure you can think of your own examples. All domesticated livestock, for instance. I must say I assumed (rightly?) that pheasant wasn’t a species we the people have altered. Still this impetus to change other species, not to mention ourselves, is a core human quality.

Let’s leave off fauna and turn to flora for a moment. The garden has been taken from the wild and domesticated and made to reflect the cultural status of the human person. Et voila, the pheasant finds itself trundling around these manicured grounds. Man can cooperate with nature in creating beauty and elegance in his/her surroundings. In a twelve-fold sequence, this oracle is ruled by the sign of Leo, the major tenet of which is: co-creation with god. The building of ones home and castle, the notion of nobility, if not aristocracy, and the divine right of kings, all fall under Leo’s astrological umbrella. We set ourselves up in contrast to nature, flora and fauna. It is made to serve us, functionally and aesthetically. We create our little bits of heaven here on Earth and the more skill and means we amass, the better we do so. We intend to improve upon what god has made, apparently, not willing to accept the state in which plant and animal exist. We will create our environment and its inhabitants in our own image of beauty and necessity. We will breed out that which we do not fancy or which doesn’t serve us. We are not just god’s co-creators, we are god’s finishing producers, taking the creator’s raw materials and making them into the fastest race horses, the sweetest corn, the cutest poodle and the most effective antibiotics.

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Sea imagery seems always to crop up in the oracles that are ruled by the sign of Cancer in a twelve-fold sequence. At 10° Capricorn we find An Albatross Feeding From The Hand Of A Sailor. Fittingly, I find myself on a boat right now moored off an island where I will be spending New Year’s Eve with friends. And I’m curious and eager to explore this image because tonight does mark yet another important turn of the wheel—anyway, the albatross has always been an interesting being to me, ever since reading the Rime of the Ancient Mariner as a kid. With the previous oracles all seemingly hinged on becoming open channels to divine nature and power, we here find a man who embodies such “perfect harmlessness” that he can have the wildest of creatures eat out of his hand without any element of fear, one way or the other.

Today’s oracle is pinioned upon establishing a partnership based on mutual respect and total understanding. If we accept the notion that every living entity plays a role in the world’s “ritual of existence”, which typically plays out in a manner that separates one being from another, the power of love can bring normally disparate entities together. To have an albatross around one’s neck is a burden, a word not unfamiliar to the Capricorn (scape)goat. However, we see that sea bird, here, not as a burden but as an entity that one can joyfully help through expression of compassion, skewing the concept of responsibility in a positive direction. Responsibility, a keynote of Capricorn’s ruler Saturn, can be a chore or it can be something that honors the word’s true etymological meaning—an ability to respond. In this case, the need is to feed, nurture being the watch-word of the sign of Cancer.

Who hasn’t had that Dr. Doolittle fantasy of being able to “talk” to the animals. I know I have many a time, alone, walking through a wood, tried to telepathically signal to animals I encountered that I am “one of the good ones” who wouldn’t harm them, psychically beckoning them toward me with waves of good intent. Is it possible to be that open a channel of perfect divine love such than animals would gather round you as they would an Orpheus or St. Francis of Assisi. I’d like to think they would. Food is a great motivator, feeding being a gesture of co-creation, providing to other entities what the natural world is meant to in its perfect abundant state. Walking through the Beech Forest in Provincetown, for instance, one can hold out a palm filled with sunflower seeds and affect the landing of a little chickadee for a quick nibble. One feels like a benevolent guardian in such instances where wild beings afford us the kind of trust we might afford a higher power. Food for thought.

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