第9章

If we apply the foregoing illustration to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, we shall see a perfect analogy.We shall find that when the Sun reaches the celestial equator, so that it is equal day and equal night on the Earth, that he is on the line of the celestial horizon; it is cosmic sunrise.Hence Aries, the fiery Azoth, begins his active influx, and extends for thirty degrees, equal to two hours of the natural day.

It is the fiery red streams of awakening life that we all manifest at sunrise; then comes a change of magnetic polarity after the first fiery flush of cosmic life; the gleeful chattering of the birds and the cackling of the poultry.A reaction is noted; all things before active become restful and quiet.

So it is with vegetation, so it is with infant life, and so it is with cosmic conditions.

This corresponds with the sign Taurus.It is the solar influx, thirty degrees removed from his point of equilibrium toward the North.As this sign represents the powers of absorption, we see that at this period vegetable and animal life is quietly absorbing, for its own use, the fiery streams of solar life.

Again we view the activity of solar influx from a different angle and change of polarity, and all things become active, It is executive force.This corresponds to the sign Gemini.It is the solar influx, sixty degrees removed from his point of equilibrium.Then comes another change of magnetic polarity.It is rest from labor; it is noon.This corresponds to Cancer.The analogy is perfect.It is the solar influx, ninety degrees removed from his point of equilibrium toward the North, and the highest point in the arc of his apparent journey and of cosmic life.It is theequilibrium of life forces.

Again the fiery influx begins its activity, and, as the hottest part of the day is about two hours after noon, or middle of the day, so is solar influx most potent at this point in the Zodiac.

This corresponds to the sign Leo.It is the solar influx, removed 120 degrees from his point of equilibrium and thirty degrees toward the South.And so on month after month, until the last one, Pisces, which well corresponds to the watery skies of February and the lifeless period two hours before dawn of a new day upon the Earth, a new year to man and a new cycle in the starry heavens.The Zodiac, then, as it applies to the human constitution and the science of astrology, has its foundation in the Sun, the center and source of life to the planet; and the twelve signs are the twelve great spaces of our Earth's annual orbit about her solar parent, each one typical of its month, and each month typical of its corresponding action upon our Earthy conditions.

As each sunrise is different in its aspects, so are no two signs of the Zodiac alike.The sunrise on the first of March is wholly different from the sunrise upon the first of May.So is the beginning and ending of each sign, and the beginning and ending of each natural day, peculiar unto itself.

When we reflect upon the inner laws of this action and interaction, we come nearer and nearer to the one great occult fact, viz.: THE DIVINE ONENESS OF LIFE.

We find a perfect analogy between the destiny, the life, and expression of life on the Earth, and the life and material destiny of embodied man.He, too, has his sunrise, the beginning of a new day of life, the seedtime, the flowering season, when life wears a roseate hue; the ripening fruits of experience, his harvest-time--it may be tares or golden grain; his gradual decay, the ebbing of the life forces and the icy winter of death; his gentle zephyrs and destructive hurricanes, floods and tempests, periods of drought and plenty.Within his triune constitution there are spring tides and low tides of physical, intellectual and spiritual forces.Man also makes the annual journey about the solar center, when, at the beginning of each new year to him, the life forces of his soul are renewed, regalvanized, so to say, according to the magnetic polarity of his constitution.

And so, every form of life has its Zodiac, its orbit of life and destiny.It may be infinitesimal, or vast beyond conception, each in its own peculiar plane.So we see that, the whole visible universe is one vast organism, the medium of expression for the invisible, real universe-- the soul and God, the great central Sun, the eternal center of all life, binding the whole into unity--ONE LIFE.

The celestial signs of the shining Zodiac have no existence to us apart from the graceful and unwearying motion of our Mother Earth.She alone makes our seasons, years and destiny; and she alone, by her motion about the Sun, determines the thrones and mansions of the planetary powers.

The astrological Zodiac of a Saturn or a Mars cannot be like ours.Their years and seasons are peculiar to themselves and their material conditions; hence the twelve constellations have no existence as objective facts of concrete formation or cosmic potentiality.No! But as unalterable symbols of occult truth, the starry pictures of the shining constellations have an eternal verity.They pertain to the living realities of the human soul and its varied experience.

What the mysteries are, and what connection they have with the twelve constellations, will form the subject of our next chapter.