At 1° Sagittarius the symbol is: Retired Army Veterans Gather To Reawaken Old Memories which our friend Dane Rudhyar says is about the will to reaffirm the value of the struggle upon which civilization and group-achievements are founded. When one of the planets alights on this degree, we might see a reunion is in the stars, while there will definitely be a need for, or an event signalling, validation of past experience as having created the right kind of present and future. Power is always a keynote of any of these symbols involving the military; and as you can imagine, that power stems from alignment of consciousness on a common goal, pledge, ideal. So we might ask ourselves what we have fought for in the past, in common with others with whom we share experience, and is it serving to protect us in the present and does it still open onto a bright future. Oftentimes, we find these images being ruled by Aries in a twelve-fold sequence, a sign ruled by Mars, named for the war god.

Healing is also an aspect of this symbol. Surely not everybody made it, and some of us bear the scars of our struggle. We will reawaken old memories and they won’t all be good ones. Recently, Stella and I gathered in Scotland with a number of old friends from our days in Paris in the 1980s. Mostly it was a jolly time and reminiscences mainly inspired laughter. Also, each of us had bits of memory that others had forgotten; and so we really ended up filling in gaps for one another, which was healing in its own right. However, there were key members of our tribe who didn’t survive the times between creating and becoming memories. And, there, too, we had holes in the story of what happened filled in and gained some increased sense of peace I suppose. Mostly everybody has a success story to tell. I like to think I’m one of them but sometimes I slip into comparison; but my friends will remind me how much I have achieved and why it is I should feel proud and blessed. I mainly do because of the good people in my life with whom I served in the trenches of a war for a life as a self-starter who lives by his wits with nobody telling him what to do and when to do it. So, I salute my friends and I salute my life.

Copyright 2015 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.