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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