When does our solid foundation, the structures we created, our constructs that provided security become cages, prisons and how will we find a solution, a way out. The Sabian Symbol associated with this day at 6° Aries is A Square, With One Of Its Sides Brightly Illumined. Squares symbolize stability and a sense of completion, so before we set upon dismantling that fact let’s acknowledge it. We can’t deconstruct before we understand our structures. Philosophically, anthropologically, linguistically, upper case Structuralism, as our substitute for a brain Wikipedia puts it: “is the theory that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger overarching system or structure.” Basically what this says is that no part of us can be truly understand without looking at its relationship to all the other parts, the whole, of us. Meditations on our our own wholes not withstanding, we all crave solidity in our lives, means of definition, boundaries; and we all put up walls. As I type this I get a visual flash of today’s image being something of a house of cards. What goes up may need to come tumbling down, but not necessarily so.

It’s all about that forth wall. In my mind the top, left and bottom of the square are drawn by solid lines, red lines in my mind’s eye, and the right side of the square is the illumined one, glowing brightly, as if a red line has been drawn over with a yellow highlighter. But that’s just me. That fourth wall is energized, not so much electrified as powered, like a forcefield. Unlike the other ordinary solid walls, this one, though solid too, can be passed through, as if into another dimension. As a thespian whose fourth wall was strengthened by a very strict Uta Hagen, I cannot help but look upon this image as a stage with a pronounced proscenium, the illumination being the flood of the overhead spot- and footlights, where we are compelled to express ourself, giving It all we’ve got. Here we are ready to articulate what needs being said, perhaps to as great an audience as we can reach. Expression is key, whether it be a player on the stage, which all the world is, or someone imprisoned in a cage, shouting convincing pleas into the glare beyond bars. It is here we are ready, perhaps, not only to express but to confess, in either case there is a purge suggested and, by extension of process of purification. The illumined side provides an outlet.

We are all of us contained, if not trapped, within structures within structures. There are walls all around us, designed to protect and/or contain us. There are literal material trappings—we are limited by our physical, mental and emotional spaces and the expression of our soul, thus seems a transcendent outlet. We are constrained by natural laws, by societal codes, by circumstance, by our family origins, by our nationality, by our station or class, by shortcomings, by faults, by our needs, our desires, our addictions, by economic status, on and on and on. However, we have freedom of expression to purge ourselves of so-called restraints by pointing at them, speaking to them, using them as our source material. Whether we are comedians or legislators, activists or gurus, physicists or folksingers, we step through the fourth wall to deliver our observances on the barriers we come up against in our quest for personal or collective growth, freedom and understanding.

Uta used to say: Obstacles should only make your objective stronger. And that is as true in life as it is on the stage, the latter being a metaphor for the former. The more we come up against in life, the more compelled we should be to take to that proscenium, or pulpit or soap box, tearing down that (fourth) wall in an awakening of self, and others, to the Light that needs to be shined into this box or that we find ourselves in. We all feel imprisoned in various ways, by outside influence or inner fears and insecurities. We can hide in the dark corners of society or in the repressed recesses of our minds, or we can run toward that Light and boldly let loose sounds, vibrations, that would shake those walls behind us to their foundations. They will crumble under our jokes, they will melt from the heat of our debate, they will disintegrate and turn to dust, blowing in the wind at the sound of the folk song. There will always be walls, in every epoch. There are walls every day in our individual lives. Feel them, bang your head against them, claw at them and consume what they stand for because they are the confines which to scale; and the containment they are designed to provide should send you over the top in your expression, be it creative, intellectual, spiritual, nurturing, enlightening or all of the above.

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