A Blazing Fireplace In A Deserted Home speaks to the realization that even in our most desolate hours spirituality burns within us beckoning our consciousness to return to a soulful center. This oracle at 8° Libra is ruled by Scorpio in a twelve-fold sequence which makes sense given that sign’s association with the depths of human consciousness—both in terms of suffering and finding meaning—which are catalysts for the regeneration that is the hope of this image. Many of us lose our way. Those of us on spiritual quests may abandon these even though we’ve had experiences, if just glimpses, of essential beingness. A couple images back, we entertained the notion of transmission of said beingness from a master. Even those who’ve received this mind might stray from this “guru’s love” but the true guru, or spiritual practice, awaits our return with open arms.

This is also an image of hitting ye olde rock bottom, which again is often the place from which people soar. We must go to the darkest place, sometimes, in order to rise phoenix-like. Planet Pluto which rules Scorpio has an eliptical orbit which sees it rise and fall from our perspective. The subterranean god, Pluto and his wife-counterpart Persephone, are Chtonian figures, meaning ones who inhabit the underworld. In psychological terms, it is a metaphor for our own subconscious wherein lie the seeds of awakening to a new reality that will see us rise ever higher. How low can you go, or have to, one wonders.

I think today’s oracle bids us examine where we are experience desolation and to alight on the spark of our spiritual fires still burning. Woe it is for those whose light has already gone out, what Dane Rudhyar calls a rare and tragic occurance. And yet we all know when we encounter such zombies and sociopaths who are beyond the hope of spiritual rekindling. Even if the creative dream we were trying to foster and protect is abandoned it isn’t the end of us. The destruction is part of the same cycle as new creation. We find new hope. And though there are times when this cycle is all encompassing—Scarlett O’Hara digging into her Chtonian tara to root out a vegetable she chomps on before vowing never again—we all experience tiny occurances of this cycle all the time, even in the midst of great fortune. So today let’s ask ourselves where the desolation lives and then see a fire there burning in the midsts of all that’s cold and broken.

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