Out of the Darkness Fly the Arrows of Inspiration

Knowing how passionate I am about the link between the zodiac and the seasonal cycle from which its meanings derive, people often ask me how I reconcile the fact that the fire sign Sagittarius falls within the darkest season of the year.  I have done a lot of searching reflection on this over the years and have come to see how absolutely perfectly it fits.  We can easily see how the other fire signs, Aries and Leo work perfectly with the element in a very visible and obvious way.  Aries is the like the first buds of Spring bursting with life force, Leo the summer heat which makes everything grow so abundantly.  With Sagittarius, that fire comes from within, filled with anticipation, promise, hope and faith.

I often think of Sagittarius as being that sign that carries the strongest "light" / "positive" energy in the zodiac, and this would fit with the symbolism we find in eastern traditions where the yang force emerges strongest when the yin is at its most saturated and we can reach that point in the Scorpio phase.  In Scorpio we faced our darkest fears and shadows, journey into the underworld, as the sun accelerates lower toward the horizon and the realisation of death in nature confronts us, as the nights draw in ever closer.  In Sagittarius, while the night still draw in closer, the rate acceleration of the sun toward the horizon is checked and begins to decrease as we move toward the solstice.  And with that comes the ritual realisation that the Sun will return again, and it is this event which is anticipated in Sagittarius.  This is celebrated, of course, in Christianity, with the season of Advent - which anticipates the birth of Christ, perfectly synchronous (and many would say derived from) with the Winter Solstice tradition which honours and celebrates the return of the Sun.  So in Sagittarius, we can be inspired, like Magi-astrologers who predict the holy birth, to take that leap of faith, soar beyond our fears and limitations, rise again out of the depths of our shadows, with renewed hope and vigour.

I have also reflected that even in Scorpio, where we have a very male symbol Mars, which drives us downward into the depths of our soul - the arrow symbol in the Scorpio glyph is beneath the ground level - and represents how the seed of life's continuing cycle is sown under-the-ground, even though it appears that nature is dying.  In Sagittarius, the symbol clears the ground and that realisation of eternal life rises up into the light of consciousness and we are given the possibility to travel beyond death into a bigger, more inclusive understanding of life.

In our recent alchemical journey workshop for Sagittarius, we imagined ourselves re-kindling the fires of inspiration that the goddess Hestia has been tending for us and spreading that fire far and wide.  In the cycle of fire in the zodiac, Aries lights the spark that gets the fire going, Leo tends the fire and keeps it burning with an eternal flame, and Sagittarius, takes that fire and spreads it abroad with infectious energy and vigour.  Sagittarius has the power to light up even the darkest recesses of the mind to realise the interconnectedness of life.  Sagittarius provides the perspective to bring ideas together that we have forgotten are connected.  It connects the heavens with the earth, the above with the below.  It helps us to think symbolically, mythically and of life in terms a journey.  It is the sign of pilgrimage and in many ways it defines our alchemical journey which is really born out of the Sagittarian perspective.

Mars, Pluto & the Poppy - Flower of the Underworld

I have just walked the labyrinth in my garden to mark the armistice, and found myself, on this day of remembrance, meditating upon the symbolic qualities of the poppy.  It is said that when WWI veterans returned to the fields of Flanders the year after the end of World War 1, they saw fields of red poppies where the bodies of their fellow soldiers had fallen, and it is said to have reminded them both of the blood that had been spilt there.  The poppy was then instituted as the symbol of remembrance and it has been traditional to wear one in your buttonhole in the first weeks of November each year to remember those who gave their lives.

"In Flanders fields the poppies grow between the crosses row on row..." (John Macrae)

It has always struck me as so deeply significant, both that November should be chosen as the month of remembrance and that the poppy should be its symbol.  As I have discussed at length in earlier blog posts, this is the season of the dead, the season of the scorpion, and it is the time when traditional cultures in the northern hemisphere honour their ancestors, remember the dead, and conduct underworld initiation rites, of which the poppy is commonly found as the traditional symbol.

The poppy has always been associated with both sleep and death.  In Greek mythology it is a flower of the Underworld, and the twin brothers Hypnos / Somnus (god of sleep) and Thanatos / Mors (god of death) both have poppies closely associated with them.  These two sons of the goddess of Night live in a cave that one reaches having travelled along the river of forgetfulness, the River Lethe.  Near to the entrance of the cave, shadowy figures beckon the sleeper into the cave with fingers to lips ushering in silence, and shaking bunches of poppies in thier hands.  Hypnos is often depicted with poppy heads in his hands and adorning his head.  He is also said to have carried a goblet of poppy juice in his hand as he welcomes the sleeper into his realm.  This obviously makes us think of opium, which can induce a liminal experience between sleep and death, and was the drug of choice for the romantic poets.  Interesting that with so much current focus on the war in Afghanistan, we find that their most coveted and valuable asset (not to mention the most controversial) is the opium poppy.

Archaeological finds at ancient burial sites confirm that the poppy was used as a sacred plant in underworld rites of passage rituals.  In some variants of the Perspehone myth it is through an underworld poppy that Kore (destined to become Perspehone), the innocent daughter of Demeter, is tempted into Hades realm.  And in her long, desperate search for her daughter, Demeter is said to have found temporary relief from her pain from ingesting the poppy.  It is interesting to note that the poppy is a companion plant of wheat and barley, the grains which Demeter granted as gifts to humans.

Poppies make us think of blood, with their bright crimson colouring, and of death with their black core.  I've been reflecting on this in relation to the sign Scorpio, for these two colours represent the colours of Scorpio's two ruling planets - Mars (red) and Pluto (black).  In the Greek tradition, Mars is called Ares, and was the most disliked of the Olympian gods - his warring impulses not suiting the palette of the supposedly more philosophical Greeks (Mars was a more celebrated figure in the Roman tradition).  Yet Ares was certainly an ally of Pluto/Hades - unsurprisingly as the wars he helps to start offer up so many souls to Hades realm.  When considering the influence of Mars, we should remember that many of the qualities that are celebrated in remembrance of those who die in war are governed by Mars.  Courage, devotion to the cause, passion, focus, loyalty and leadership in battle - these all belong to Mars.  And dying courageously for the cause unites Scorpio's two ruling planets perfectly.

There is a more profound aspect to this synthesis of Mars and Pluto, red and black - that again brings the poppy to mind. Having the courage is to enter into an unknown realm - to sacrifice what is known, what is safe, what is predictable and familiar.  And as those poppies grow up between the crosses in the fields of Flanders, they perhaps honour that instinct that Kore-Persephone first modelled. For, in her story, she willingly sacrificed her own pure innocence for the crimson promise of underworld passion, embodied in the poppy, and entered willingly (at least, if not consciously) into possibility of death and transformation that follows closely in its wake.

So I find myself reviewing my position toward the red poppy, which I have always tended to want to replace with a white one, more indicative of peace and light.  Yet for our Scorpio phase of the journey, meditation upon the red poppy seems entirely appropriate. However I might feel about the absurdity and futility of war, there is no denying the compelling power of the Mars archetype. It will always seek to find an outlet for its powerful red energy, and our innate fascination with death and transformation will, however unconsciously, draw us through Mars's warrior impulse into Hades realm.  And until we finally grasp as a race that we are all interconnected and that when we aggress or kill another we are really aggressing or killing an aspect of ourselves, swords will continue to be drawn, in ignorance, in the name of that red-blooded god.

Crying Tears For the Gods...

This post is inspired by a very moving dialogue on The Alchemical Journey forum, about death, despair, grief, loss, shame - and how sometimes we need to surrender our mental constructs and journey deep into the mystery of those perspectives in order to find catharsis and healing. Often it is not enough to just "understand" the psychological dynamics of a situation or apply positive thinking strategies or other mind games. We're in the Scorpio phase, in our natural alchemical cycle of the year, it seems like a very appropriate time to surrender our rational mind those perspectives within a safe ritual container.

Colette and I entered such a container this weekend. We've been doing a very intense tantric course - and it was a real weekend of shadows - it brought up so much shame and grief and deep, impenetrable emotions, which included joy and desire, as well as rage and fear. I cried more deeply on Sunday than I have for many years - without even really understanding why. Colette said she'd never seen me cry like that in 8 years. Looking in from the outside, one might ask why on earth would anyone want to go into that? Why risk opening up such deep wounds, wounds that go even beyond this one life? Yet by doing so we both experienced such an incredible sense of healing and re-connection to one another, and beyond that to something more profound, more-than-human.

We realised the extent to which we just been going along in a really kind of low-level way in our relationship - putting up with the way things were between us. And it reminds me how most of the time, in our everyday dialogues, we are just superficially dancing on the surface of life, playing with words, ideas and concepts - and they don't get anywhere near the powerful truth - which is always buried deep in our shadows through our complex relationship to sex, money, power, death and so on. And those shadows belong to the underworld realm of the soul, where deep memory resides - and that is vital to who we are - not something to be denied or suppressed.

I think astrology is very helpful here - especially when we treat it as a naturalistic path of transformation that can reconnect us to the divine, heavenly half of our natures. As Paracelsus said: "Heaven retains within its sphere half of all bodies and maladies" - that's the imaginal half, as Jung and others have described it - the part that belongs to the soul and cannot simply be "understood", fixed, or rationalised. It needs to be honoured in its heavenly, imaginal aspect. I like what James Hillman says, specifically in relation to astrology:

"The zodiac returns events to the gods. Each time an astrological consultation can return a characteristic to its divine character, polish a problem so that it shines in a different light, reveal the god in the disease, let the client see clearly for a moment that heavenly half, the astrologer is performing an epistrophe, returning a mess in the human to a myth in the gods”

Maybe this weekend was a kind of epistrophe for me (more than an epiphany - I've had those too!), and maybe my tears were for the gods...

In my opinion, astrology is far too easily reduced to an explanatory psychological model. Not by experienced practising astrologers, generally, though I have (too often) heard astrologers attempt to justify their alchemical art in quite reductive terms. For me astrology should not be used to reduce the complexity of our life experience to convenient, psychological "sound bites" - rather it should be capable of amplifying our experiences and opening us up to a more mythical, more-than-human realm of possibilities.

Astrology is not a reductive science, and should not be dragged, like psychology has been, down that cold, clinical and ultimately futile path, where the creative impulse to tell stories and connect to natural rhythms is starved of imaginative nourishment and imprisoned by the impossible fallacy of "objective truth". The paradigm of modern science is too narrow and exclusive to contain the mythic richness of astrology and the complex soulfulness of the psyche.

So when I work with the Zodiac, I seek to follow a naturalistic rather than psychological path, deepening the fabric of our understanding of natural cycles and systems in more-than-human terms. In other words to embrace the persectives of animals, birds, plants, trees, sacred places, each capable of embodying a divine presence. Let us not forget that this is accepted as real by every traditional culture other than our own, even though our maninstream culture has arrogantly dismissed them.

An experiential engagement with the zodiac reveals layers of mystery that cannot be comfortably be explained (away) by purely humanistic tools. Those layers of mystery can help to reveal our embodied connection to the songs and stories of the earth, songs that are ever chanted and re-chanted, stories that are ever told and creatively re-told, with modified and verses, additions, nuances and harmonies.

I believe the zodiac has the possibility to re-awaken awareness of our soul life. Like the zodiac, the soul is irreducibly plural in its perspectives. It helps restore our relationship to the gods, and although it is more comfortable nowadays to call them archetypes, we must remember that they have agency - they are alive, autonomous, capricious, and liable to surprise us at every turn.

The Alchemy of Darkness

"Night and dark are good for us. As the nights lengthen, it's time to reopen the dreaming space."(Jeanette Winterson)

This post is inspired by a beautiful article by Jeanette Winterson in Sunday's Observer. In the article she reminds us just how important it is for our sanity and well-being to embrace the cycle of the seasons, and especially the autumn and winter cycles, as nights draw in and the air becomes colder and damper. She creates a lovely image of her "24-7 friends, high on electric light" coming to visit her at her home deep in the woodlands and her feeding them root vegetables like turnip, beetroot and suede, "grown in rich-black earth...food with darkness sealed in it"!  The alchemical image of the black sun reminds us of Autumn, of the Scorpio cycle - the Sun radiating inwards, into the earth, where the seed of life has now been sown under the ground. 

We have becoming so accustomed, in our culture, to conquering the darkness with electric light, and overcoming the cold with our fossil-fuel heating systems that we too easily neglect the value of the darker season. The ready availablity of perpetual light spawns the illusion of perpetual growth in our culture, makes us believe that we can conquer nature, live beyond our natural means, disregard the fact that we are part of the earth and subject to its rhythms and cycle. Inevitably our language, our metpahors reflect this - metaphors like light, growth, gain, new, development, evolution, progress, expansion, positive are welcomed and thought to be "good". By contrast, words like dark, decay, old, contraction, loss, shadow, negative - these ideas are considered to be best avoided, overcome, put out of mind and thought to be "bad".

This is an extreme perversity of the modern condition, endemic in our political system, our economic system and our personal ambitions. It is hopelessly out-of-balance and entirely unsustainable to wish for perpetual light, perpetual growth, to be perpetually "positive" in our outlook. That is why I love this season and want to embrace it. In spite of the fact that I'm sitting here at a computer with the light on, as darkness closes in outside, struggling with that paradox, yet I want to surrender to the deeper truth that only the darkness knows.

Jeanette Winterson makes the salient point in her article that "when the lights are on" conversations tend to be focussed on outer things, projects and plans, ambitions and strategies for changing things, making them "better". When the lights are out, and we sit by candlelight or around a fire, our thoughts slow down, turn inward and we become more reflective, more sensitive, more intimate with one another.

Last night, my wife and I turned all the lights off in our house and lit some candles. We live in the countryside and it was pitch dark outside, save for the moonlight. We realised that we hadn't sat together like that for a long time - within a few minutes we were reminiscing, journeying into the deeper areas of our relationship, and listening to each other at a level that we rarely do these days, so busy we are with our projects and plans. It was a rich and very rewarding experience.

I am of the belief that we should pursue what is pleasurable to us in life. I am a great believer in pleasure and there is plenty of it to be had in the alchemical wheel of the year. But pleasure comes in many forms and flavours, and each season brings a different flavour. Following the wheel and embracing each stage of the journey, as it takes its turn enriches our lives - keeps us awake to who we are. Eating, sleeping, loving, dreaming, in a way that honours the season we are in offers us so much more possibility to feel connected, in tune, in balance. This is at the very heart of The Alchemical Journey, and the stories and symbols of the Zodiac signs offer wonderful reminders of how to make those connections.

Link to Jeanette Winterson's article: "Why I Adore the Night"

Scorpio & The Beauty of Autumn's Decrepitude

Thinking more about Scorpio and why I love this late autumn season so much, I'd like to share this beautiful reflection by Valerie Easton from a recent article in The Seattle Times. (Thanks so much Marcia for sending it to me)

"I’ve been trying to figure out why I love my garden most right now, when it’s so not at its best. And finally I think I understand: I find the garden’s quiet decline comforting, the mellow colors of autumn soothing. Only this late in the season is it possible to see the garden without a scrim of ambition and hope between me and reality.

It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it…But it’s now, during the garden’s waning weeks, that I relax into its pleasures and see every flower, falling leaf and remaining pumpkin most clearly. And it isn’t just the clarity of the low-lying sun slanting across the horizon; it’s the clarity in my head, where I’ve stopped anticipating, plotting and planning the ideal garden. Maybe this is the only time of year that most of us can get beyond our projections of gardens future and remembrances of gardens past. By this point in autumn, the garden is what it is.

As the weather cools and the days shorten so dramatically, we’re no longer aspiring. It’s not that fall dashes our dreams, but rather that it diminishes them enough so we can accept fall’s decrepitude as beautiful in its own right.”

(Valerie Easton)

The Season of the Dead

I've been thinking about why I love this time of year so much, this Scorpio time, why I find it so compelling.  I'm not a Scorpio and have no planets there (except for Neptune - and I do have a prominent Pluto). Yet for me, an Aries child of the Spring Equinox, so full of the optimistic endeavour, it is during this intimate Scorpionic interface with death, when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, that I feel most in touch with who I am and what it is to be alive.  The Sun entered Scorpio on 23rd Oct and will move into Sagittarius on 22nd Nov, and I thought it was worth reflecting on the number of annual events celebrated during this period that have a Scorpionic flavour connected to death and remembrance, seasonal transformation, due enactment, and the journey to the underworld.

Dia de los Muertos
Today is 1st November, recognised and celebrated in Spain, Mexico & other Latin American countires as "Dia de los Muertos", or the Day of the Dead.  Families and friends gather to remember relatives who have passed, and private altars are built to honour the deceased.  While in the Christian calendar, this co-incides with All Saints Day, it also traces back a lineage in Mexico to an Aztec goddess, Mictecacihuatl, The Lady of the Dead.  All Saints Day is a direct descendant of All Hallows and, in Northern European Pagan traditions, the cross-quarter festival of Samhain, meaning "summer's end".  In the Celtic calendar, Samhain marks the end of summer, the end of the harvest, and the beginning of winter.  Indeed it marks the moment of the Celtic New Year.  Traditionally, doors are left unlocked and food and drink is left out for the dead.

Remembrance Day
And at this time of year, of course, during the Scorpio cycle, it is traditional to wear a red poppy, in remembrance of those who died during the two world wars of the 20th century.  World War I famously ended on 11th November 1918 (during the 11th hour) - and this established the date of remembrance day.  Poppies have long been associated with sleep and death, and they have long been used as offerings to the dead.  The poppy is associated with Persephone - Queen of the Underworld.  In a particular variant of her myth, it is her picking of the poppy that Hades makes grow that allows the God of the Underworld to abduct her.  It is interesting to note that the choice of date for Remembrance Day involved the mystic Wellesley Tudor Pole, who founded the Chalice Well Trust in Glastonbury and was a trusted advisor to Winston Churchill.  Tudor Pole is also the inspiration behind the "Silent Minute", a daily meditation that Churchill instated during World War II, and is often cited as a major factor in unifying the British people during that time.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November!
Next week, on 5th November in the UK, we still celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, where we traditionally light a bonfire and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic restorationist, who attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.  He was arrested in the early hours of 5th November during that year, and as a mark of due enactment, and possibly a reminder to others who might be so inclined to copy him, his effigy is ritually burned every year.  Extraordinary that such a tradition should have last over 400 years, but it has, and perhaps it has because of its incredible timing, during the time of the year when it is traditional to light bonfires.  A bonfire was originally a bone-fire, a Samhain tradition where animal bones were burned as a way of warding off evil spirits.

In Sussex, Bonfire Night takes on a different slant, being associated with the execution of the Protestant martyrs. Hence, on 5th November the largest bonfire celebration in Britain takes place in Lewes, the county town of Sussex, and site of the last protestant execution.  This is always a heated affair (forgive me!), and tensions run deep in the town.  Thousands of people attend every year, and the police have a policy of announcing that it has been cancelled to try and reduce numbers, though they would never dare cancel it of course!  Several bonfires are lit simultaneously in different parts of the town.  The most controversial of these involves the burning of an effigy of the Pope.  I attended this event about 12 years ago with my girlfriend at the time, who was Italian - brought up a Catholic - and she couldn't believe what she was seeing! 

And there are many other calendrical traditions around the world that honour the dead at this season, and honour the journey into the Underworld that Scorpio represents.  There is a marvellous website that gives details of these:  http://www.novareinna.com/constellation/scorpioevents.html

To observe so many Scorpionic traditions constellating together at this time of year reminds me of the way that the calendar focusses our imagination and activates our deep knowing about the alchemical year, even if as a culture we have become largely unconscious of the process.