Aries 16°

(For last year’s meditation on the Sabian Symbol for this degree: click here)

Still excerpting from….wouldn’t you like to know.

All the cardinal forces, whether they be fire, water, air or earth, are concerned with initiative and pioneership, as we’ll also see, in the fourth, seventh and tenth chapters of this book. The warrior knight, or knightess (to coin a term), doesn’t give up the fight, something that, for this archetype, is never settled. And so, just as this premier energy applies to our own sparks of interest or inspiration, the unforgettable fires that burned within us, often from childhood, we must realize that had we the good fortune of actually flaming them the whole of our lives, never deviating from the singularity of their purpose, we would nonetheless still need to continually kindle them, vigilantly, to keep those sparks crackling. The first astrological house, home of the 1st Cosmic Energy, is often called that of new beginnings. If you think about it, this defines each dawning day, indeed every moment, spent pursuing our quests or attacking experience in general. Though some attributes of the astrological houses are quite literal, others are more cryptic than they appear on face value. Case in point: even though we can take new beginnings literally, encoded in it is also the notion that the present is paramount. Living in the now is a cornerstone of most spiritual practices—and what the zodiac tells us is that every instant is, thus, a fresh start. Indeed, we ourselves need to be new to our experience in order to further it. This sort of freshness never fades. It is the spirit of newness, the energy that cannot get old. Goals, once achieved, must be replaced by subsequent ones, even when set further along the same überpath toward achieving a larger objective, which some of us are fortunate enough to stick to for the best part of our lives. It comes down to forever setting your mind on forging that much more ahead. Your attitude, your outlook, is thus powered by this cosmic force, as it requires constant renewal to keep us moving forward. Pushing ourselves, even in intellectual pursuits, requires the summoning of physical stamina. Alternately, ever increasing our physical strength supports our ability to cope with emotional, mental or even spiritual challenges. Moving Mars-ruled blood around and building Mars-ruled muscle is great for the Aries-ruled head. As with most things which have been purported by metaphysicians, often dating back to antiquity, which science eventually proves true: Bodily fitness, we now know, not only staves off or helps to eradicate physical disease, but it also combats mental disorders such as anxiety and depression which, though taking root in the physical, often originate from what we might call the emotional body, or indeed the astral one. The physical self is a teacher. For as we attend to it’s fitness, building and maintaining real muscle, we always develop as much if not more figurative sinew.

The physical self, your very own personal hard drive, must be maintained and cared for in order to become the you you want to be. Not to say that everybody and their stepmother must sign up for spin classes. By the same token there are many athletes who aren’t (even naturally) in touch with the 1st energy, which no doubt makes their undertakings more difficult than they need to be. It is the spirit in which one approaches even the most strenuous physical activity that can truly make the difference, not only in the performance itself, but in the mind’s ability to both enjoy, excel at, and exceed expectations of it. Picture that vigilant knight/ess. Know doubt there is an element of asceticism in your vision of this figure. So too is there a Spartan ingredient to the 1st Cosmic Energy. Indeed, when it comes to our physical selves, less does tend to be more, specifically in regard to food and drink. Going without puts us in touch with want in a physical way, which attunes us to the 1st energy, a force of want on every level. Hemingway clued into this when he wrote, “hunger is good discipline.” Sparsity makes room for concentration cum meditation, whereby ones batteries recharge on a deeper level than a digestive one. It is an expression of 1st Cosmic Energy as the Will-to-be, sacrificing to the now so to amass power for achieving in the immediate future. Moreover, the knight/ess’s forgoing revelry for quiet vigil shows the kind of character, and literal integrity, that instead revels in ones own company. The realization that each of us are born alone and die alone, we might suspect, enters into the consciousness of such solo contemplation. In accordance with this archetype, we all possess the ability to stay, focused, on our path and to embrace the power of our aloneness as it propels us ever further upon it. A body in motion staying in motion, one is more likely to win the label of “active individual” if he or she is pursuing interests native to his or her very being. When not thus engaged, people tend to fill the so-called empty spaces in their psyche with, well, stuff, whether it be distracting situations or relationships or substances which ultimately snuff your spark-le.

 

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