When we achieve what was prescribed in yesterday’s reading, ridding ourself of the past and making ourselves new to new experience, we experience individual fullfilment and become an inspiration to others. Such is the meaning of today’s symbol for 13° Gemini, A Famous Pianist Giving A Concert Performance. We evolve into something a bit more superhuman than we were before. Of course today’s symbol is ruled by Aries in a twelve-fold sequence, that sign being all about the upper case Self. Self in Eastern philosophy is not akin with the ego as it is here in the West. The Self we were born as represents a new degree of human evolution as, surely, the human race evolves, on the whole, ever so slightly, from one generation to the next, as if you needed another reason to feel superior to your parents. While metaphorically speaking, we can evolve (ourselves) during our own lifetimes by going through certain passages which, for me, are endlessly embodied in the roll out of the wheel of the zodiac as each sign and its corresponding house has endless attributes and lessons to impart.

The image of the concert pianist is one of the individual displaying transcendent human power, skill, talent to the collective. S/he is elevating the human experience further beyond the animal to that of supreme being. Music is something intangible which has been divined, the instrument of the piano having been built upon this divination, and the individual has made him- or herself one with it, employing both mind and emotion in the process of bringing the transcendence (of the music) to light. This is great human achievement that moves the body of the collective, through the emotional waves of the music, but also beyond the mediocre, showing the rest of us that we are capable of more than meets the eye. We can achieve the status of virtuoso, wunderkind, prodigy. These are extraordinary elements of human-being, but well within the realm of possibility. But think of what it might take to be a concert pianist: sacrifice and the removal of obstacles, which were the keynotes of yesterday’s reading, as well as practice and the sharpening of our skill. We can’t be vague. A virtuoso cannot wing it. We must strive for certain mastery, the kind that is in utter service to the vehicle of our own transcendence, not to the ego. The goal of the pianist is to be great, not to be applauded, which is only a byproduct. Successful pursuits, even those of a tandem or group nature, must be individual pursuits at their core. And we should never rest or plateau in our striving to achieve greater greatness. We must keep evolving as thinkers, as artists, as humans; and if every individual were to take responsibility, solely, for him- or herself than we would be, on the whole, a self-actualized species.

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