Dear Friends,
Each degree of the sidereal zodiac is a gateway into the life of Christ. Guarded by the zodiacal beings—the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones—the memories of the Christ tableau stream toward the Earth each time a planet in our solar system revisits its degree during a Christ event. One such stream will approach us on Sunday, the day of this month’s New Moon.
The zodiacal position of the New Moon (11° Taurus) recalls an event known as the ‘little Transfiguration’ (16/Sep/29), which took place a week before the Baptism in the Jordan. At the time, Jesus was in the company of the Essene Eliud, a friend to the holy family who attended synagogue in Nazareth. Anne Catherine saw Eliud as a venerable, gray-haired old man with a long beard:
During the night, I saw them again walking. Sometimes they were together, sometimes separate. And then I witnessed something extraordinary: an unspeakably lovely vision. While Jesus was walking on ahead, Eliud passed some remarks regarding the symmetry and beauty of his physical form. Jesus replied: “If thou shouldst behold this body two years hence, thou wouldst find in it neither beauty nor symmetry, so greatly will they abuse and maltreat me.” But Eliud understood not his words. Above all, he could not comprehend why Jesus always spoke of his kingdom as existing in so short a time; for he thought ten, even twenty years must elapse before it would be founded. He could not bring himself to think otherwise, since his thoughts were of an earthly kingdom.
When they had gone a short distance, Jesus paused and bade Eliud . . . to approach, and he would show him who he was, of what nature was his body, and of what kind his kingdom. Eliud drew near to within several steps of Jesus. Then Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and prayed. A cloud, like those seen in a thunderstorm, descended and enveloped both. Although they could not be seen from without, over them opened a heaven of light which seemed to descend toward them. Above, I saw a city of shining walls—I saw Heavenly Jerusalem! The whole interior was lit up with a rainbow-colored light. I saw a figure like God the Father, and I saw Jesus—his form perfectly luminous and transparent, connected with [the Father] by beams of light. [Visions, vol. 1, pp. 321–22]
On Wednesday the 28th, the Moon (2° Gemini) conjoins Jupiter. We’ll have about two hours after sunset to see them before they, too, descend into the celestial hemisphere that is beneath us. Mars, shining from the last decan of Cancer, will set two hours later.
Although Pentecost represents the most profound moral memory associated with this degree—by way of the Sun’s position on 24/May/33—the Moon today recalls Jesus (who had been invited to dine at the house of a Pharisee) telling the parable of the great feast:
“When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsman or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind—and because they cannot repay you, you will be blessed. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12–14)
Imbued with the Gemini ideal of loving brotherhood, this parable provides us with a measure of our character: our willingness to befriend those without the means to ‘repay’ us.
On Friday, Mercury (14° Taurus) moves to the far side of the Sun. Because of Mercury’s connection to the lungs—and the Sun’s to the heart—we might understand Mercury’s alternating inferior and superior conjunctions in terms of breathing. The oxygen-poor (‘impoverished’) blood, from the periphery of the body, returns to the lungs by way of the heart. This is the ascending stream, punctuated imaginatively by the superior conjunction. The oxygen-poor blood is akin to the state of inner emptiness. From Tomberg:
The vow of poverty is the practice of inner emptiness, which is established as a consequence of the silence of personal desires, emotions, and imagination so that the soul is capable of receiving from above the revelation of the word, the life, and the light. [MOT, p. 112]
At the superior conjunction of Mercury, the gesture of the human soul is that of awaiting what is new and unexpected.
Sacré bleu! This conjunction is just a degree from the Royal Star Aldebaran, the first of the four stars that constitute a path of initiation known as the Royal Way. Lacquanna Paul and Robert Powell wrote:
[It] was the great Persian teacher Zarathustra who first designated their royalty, calling them the ‘Four Guardians of Heaven’ or the ‘Watchers in the Four Directions’, with Aldebaran as the ‘Watcher in the East’—also called the ‘Eye of God’. [Cosmic Dances of the Zodiac, p. 23]
May your week be a blessed one!
~ Julie H.