Who Rules This World?
If you have read any of my other blogs you will know that I see a lot of world events through the lens of astrology, and the philosophy from which it comes, Kabbalah, which is the root of the three Abrahamic religions. If you would like to read an introduction to astrology, and to the New Age which our world is entering, you might like to read one of my first blogs in this series, Turning Of The Age. To summarize that article, astrology could be seen as a belief system for the New Age, not a religion, and not a science, but more of a spiritual psychology. Astrology is no longer a quaint superstition or free-choice destroying fortune telling. It is based on rational principles of biology and psychology, and has very little to do with the stars having any direct effect on our personalities or fate. If you would like to explore those principles, please see the work of astronomer Percy Seymour , or watch my series of videos about the Tropical Zodiac. In this article, which focuses on the current Corona Virus pandemic, I will propose that current events [Ed:this article was written in March 2020] are symbolized by current planetary aspects and transits, which in turn represent different types of human consciousness.
Unless you have been living off the grid for the past few months, you are probably aware that the world is in the grip of an invisible (without a microscope) Corona virus known as COVID-19. If you are unfortunate enough to have caught the virus I wish you a fast recovery, and if you are like me, wondering if you have been exposed to it, but trying to stay healthy and not expose others, I hope that this information from Kabbalah will be useful. Just as we need a microscope to see the virus, I sometimes think that we need a philosophical microscope to examine all the facets of this event, besides those which our media give us. I have no medical qualifications and this blog is in no way meant to be taken as medical advice.
In the modern version of Kabbalah known as Qabalah, the major arcana of Tarot are placed on the mystical Tree Of Life of Judaism, on the paths connecting the 10 spheres or sephirot. The tarot key shown above, shown as The Emperor, represents the Zodiac sign Aries, sometimes also represented by The Ram, and this is the first sign of the Zodiac, ruling the period of time beginning at the Spring/Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere, and lasting for 30 days. As I described in The Turning Of The Age, the Tropical Zodiac signs not only metaphysically rule these 30 day periods in our year, but on a far grander level, they rule whole epochs of time, spanning millennia. The Age Of Aries, so called because this was the age when the constellation Aries rose at dawn at the Spring Equinox, took place about 4000 years ago, and in Biblical terms, it was the time of the mythical Moses and the Old Testament. It was the time when a group of people in Judea known as the Jews, turned away from the many gods of paganism and started worshiping One God.
If you remember the Bible story of Moses, you might recall that Moses went up Mount Sinai and spoke to the One God in the form of a burning bush. This corresponds to Aries being a Fire sign. Moses received the Ten Commandments - each one corresponding to one of the 10 sephirot on the Tree Of Life - and when he asked God what he should say to the children of Israel about Who he had been talking to, God said, tell them I Am sent you. Esoterically, we are all little holographic images of the One God, and in theory, our "I Am-ness" has similar powers to God's powers. The main power that our I-Am-ness has, is the power of order and defense. That is why The Emperor sits on a throne and is a ruler. He is stern and just, commanding the universe he has created to obey His will. He wears a suit of armor under his red robe, symbolizing the defensive power of Mars, which rules Aries. And He wants to be number One.
But what does being number One really mean? It means that everything, absolutely everything, seen and unseen, is part of this Unity consciousness. It is One-NESS, containing everything, rather than being separate from that creation, and the biggest mistake in people's understanding of the Old Testament God is that It is separate from creation. Atheists like Richard Dawkins, in saying that God is a delusion, are right in a way, if they mean a God which is separate from "His" creation. The idea of Oneness is a principle idea in Eastern religions.
If we look at the path of The Emperor in the Tree Of Life, we see that it connects sphere #2, known as Chokmah/Wisdom or Light, to sphere #6, known as Tiphareth/Beauty or the Christ Consciousness. Chokmah is the first perceivable manifestation of the Ineffable God, symbolized by sphere #1, Kether/The Crown. As pointed out recently in a YouTube video by Rabbi Elyahu Kin, the name of the current virus threat is "Corona" and Corona means Crown in Latin. Maybe this is just coincidence, but students of kabbalah take coincidences seriously. As I am going to argue in the next paragraphs, this virus crisis could be seen as a big wake up call from the One consciousness that we have not been respecting His laws, His orders. A negative use of our I-Am-ness is Ego or Hubris - thinking that we know better than this One complete consciousness.
Note that the path of The Emperor is on the right hand side of the Tree Of Life. This is the side, or pillar, which symbolizes ideas which come to us, intuitively, or as feelings. We feel them or know them as if they come from inside us. Compare this to the left hand side, or pillar, which symbolizes the outside world of the senses, the intellect and of science. For example, if we look at the path of The Lovers key, which is the corresponding key to The Emperor on the left side of the tree, we see that it connects the black sphere of Binah/Understanding to Tiphareth/Beauty. Binah is the planet Saturn, or limitation, and it symbolizes our perception of God, life, the universe, through the lens of separateness. After the ineffable Oneness has manifested as Light (Chokmah), according to Kabbalah, It splits into two, one of which is the physical manifestation of the material world. The pairs of opposites which we see down here might include male and female, day and night, good and evil etc. We perceive these pairs of opposites through our senses, mainly our eyes, sometimes forgetting that they are really hiding the Unity behind the appearances. In The Lovers key, which represents the Zodiac sign Gemini, we see how this theory of creation got handed down in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden Of Eden. The sign Gemini is all about discrimination - it is ruled by Mercury, the planet of intellect.
In 1977, astronomers at Mount Palomar observatory in S. California, in liaison with Mt. Wilson in Pasadena, observed a new object in our solar system, mostly orbiting between Saturn and Uranus, but having an elliptical orbit and sometimes appearing just inside Jupiter's orbit. It wasn't a planet, but what looked half like a comet and half like an asteroid. Astronomers had been seeing it since the 1890s, and by coincidence, this was also the time that viruses were discovered . Astronomers decided to name it Chiron, after the Greek myth character who was one of the centaurs, or half man/half horse gods in their pantheistic system. There are many asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, and this region is sometimes known as the centaur belt. Astrologers were fascinated by the new body, sometimes retro-fitting its esoteric meaning to the Greek myth character. Chiron become known as the Wounded-Healer, because Chiron in the myth, was a healer, but had a wound himself,which he could not heal. Other astrologers saw Chiron as the bridge between the material and spiritual worlds, in line with its orbit between Saturn and Uranus, which is the closest of the Outer or Transcendental planets before Neptune and Pluto - and a few more discovered in the past 10 years. Please note that astrologers still regard Pluto as a planet, even though it has been demoted to a dwarf planet by astronomers.
But why am I focusing on Chiron, rather than the other planets, or any of the other dozens of asteroids and comets orbiting in our solar system? I am going to cover the regular planets in the second half of this blog, but firstly, I'm honing in on Chiron because it is unique in its orbit. Instead of having a roughly circular orbit between two other planets, Chiron seems to partake of several orbits; those of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and just touching that of Neptune. Chiron has a 52 year orbit of the Sun, and because of its elliptical and odd path, it spends more time in some signs than others. Astrologically, it symbolizes a type of consciousness which could be seen as a "messenger" or teacher, combining the traits of the these astronomical orbits it covers. And, as anyone who has felt Chiron's transit's will know, on a subjective level, those transits can be very profound. I haven't mentioned Chiron in my previous blogs because I don't think we can really grasp its symbolism before understanding the Inner/personal (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars), Social (Jupiter and Saturn) and Transcendental (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) planets first. So please have a look at my other astrology blogs or browse the internet for a grasp of these concepts, including those by astrologer Melanie Reinhardt, who sees Chiron as a wounded healer, and Barbara Hand Clow, who sees Chiron as a Rainbow Bridge, connecting the material world of Saturn to the Transcendental consciousness of the Outer Planets.
To me, Chiron is not only a teacher. He is an "initiator" or tester of our spiritual concepts. We are wounded when we forget to apply spiritual concepts, no matter how much we think we understand them, and we are healed when we see the lesson behind the wounding. Some astrologers associate Chiron with Tarot Key #14, Temperance, which shows the Archangel Michael with one foot on the material plane and one foot in the waters of transcendental consciousness. And in some versions of this card, Michael has a rainbow above his head, symbolizing this gradual progression in vibration of spiritual development. On the Tree Of Life, this key joins the personality chakras/spheres to the Christ Consciousness, and is crossed by The Tower, which indicates the "wounding" we get when we become out of balance with Cosmic Law.
About two years ago from this writing, in 2018, Chiron emerged from its apparent transit of Pisces, where its astrological "effects" manifested in the hidden waters of our personal and the world's subconscious minds, where they were difficult to see objectively. Pisces also rules the oceans, so we could however see the correspondence of Chiron in this sign in the terrible wounding of earth's oceans by plastic and pollution, which stimulated massive clean up efforts. Chiron then entered the sign Aries, where we can already see its effects, in the real world, and since we are all, according to Kabbalah, microcosmic holograms of the Divine Macrocosm, we see the effects in our physical bodies, which are all ruled by Aries. When we combine the holistic symbolism of Chiron with the bodily symbolism of Aries, we get a wounding-healing crisis, literally, in our bodies, with a holistic lesson to learn. Since Mars-ruled Aries also rules royalty, leaders, power and defense, we are also likely to see lessons, tests and trials in these areas. How much power do we give our democratic leaders to order us around? What are efficient defenses against this tiny virus?
We'll now look at the symbolism of the planets whose orbits Chiron encompasses to try to get an idea of what we are all supposed to be learning.
1. Jupiter Jupiter is the Wheel Of Fortune in tarot, and it symbolizes how fortune, or luck, is really a result of our grasp, or understanding of Cosmic Law. It is our morality. Jupiter actually rules the sign associated with Temperance, illustrated above, and the properties of the physical planet Jupiter translate very well to its astrological meaning. Astronomical Jupiter is the largest planet, and it is gaseous. Astrological Jupiter is expansive and rules travel, education and higher learning. What is our understanding of how the world works? Do we see the connection, for example, between long distance air travel and the air pollution it causes?
2. Saturn You remember how the left side of the Tree Of Life, with that black Saturn sphere topping it, represents the physical, manifest world, and how we perceive this illusion of separateness with our intellects? Well our intellects have a whole sephira symbolizing them. It is the orange sphere, Hod, on the Tree Of Life, and the path connecting this sphere to Beauty, The Christ Consciousness is Key 15, The Devil. In Kabbalah, this is the Zodiac sign Capricorn, which starts at the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, and rules the darkest time of year. Capricorn rules the purely physical, material world and how humans run it, with governments, with a financial system, often with a police force and other limiting and restricting organizations corresponding to Capricorn's ruler, Saturn. Please see my blog on The Illusion Of Separateness for a more detailed explanation of this Cardinal sign. There are currently three planets in this Saturn ruled sign, which we will look at shortly, but how lets look at Saturn itself, which recently left Capricorn and entered Aquarius.
Saturn is said to co-rule Aquarius, with Uranus, the planet of freedom and social justice. In this sign, it brings structure to the idea of democracy, so we might expect that government ordered limitations bought in now would resonate with people's psyches. It doesn't quite work like that though. Some people see lock downs of businesses and people's freedom to go outside their houses, in order to supposedly stop the spread of the Corona Virus, as an infringement of democratic rights. Police arresting hikers in the countryside, or sunbathers in city parks, or flying drones above streets telling people to stay inside has gotten quite a bit of resistance from people who question its evidence based validity. Perhaps in the true Age Of Aquarius, if we are still here in 100 years, there will be no need for police, or guns, because everyone will have their own inner policeman in their conscience, preventing them from doing selfish or inconsiderate things, right now in March 2020, with a new health threat, we have confusion as to what is good policing and what is overbearing, fascist like limitation of freedom. Astrologically, this conflict is correlated to Saturn and Uranus, Aquarius' rulers, being square to each other in the sky. Saturn, as mentioned is at the beginning of Aquarius, while Uranus is at the beginning of Taurus. Taurus rules nature, and people are instinctively trying to find refuge from the virus in the countryside. They are walking in the fresh air and sunshine, boosting their immune systems and resent being followed by police drones.
Despite posts yesterday highlighting issues of people still visiting the #PeakDistrict despite government guidance, the message is still not getting through. @DerPolDroneUnit have been out at beauty spots across the county, and this footage was captured at #CurbarEdge last night. pic.twitter.com/soxWvMl0ls
— Derbyshire Police (@DerbysPolice) March 26, 2020
Since Taurus is the sign of growth, nature, and food, that Uranus in Taurus might also be seen as unusual practices in these areas. The ancient Jews who wrote the religion's dietary laws had rational reasons for only allowing certain animals to be eaten - those with cloven feet or hooves. They could see that some animals, like pigs and shell fish were easily prey to diseases and posed a health risk, even if cooked well. Will wet markets in China, which sell dubiously handled live animals still continue to do business, even after the COVID-19 epidemic in China is contained?
Then there's Neptune.
Orbiting between Uranus and Pluto, Neptune symbolizes the upside down world of spirituality. It's the Hanged Man in tarot, who has voluntarily suspended himself on the tree of the material world and is illuminated by the waters of life flowing underneath it. Well another substance which actually flows beneath the ground is oil. And all the world's plastics and pharmaceuticals are made from these oil or fossil-fuel based compounds. Do you remember (if you are old enough) when plastic bags and bottles began to take off in our culture in the 1960s? They were seen as a miracle invention, replacing breakable glass, and sleekly smooth, cleanable and reusable.
But the problem was, people didn't reuse them. They threw them away, and because they chemical structure is not biodegradable, they ended up sitting in landfills and clogging up the oceans. And because of their smoothness and non-porousness, plastic surfaces are terrible harbors for germs. Like any virus, the Corona virus does not actually have a life of its own. It is just RNA without a cell wall, and cannot survive without a host such as bacteria, or bodily fluids. So all the plastic surfaces in our homes, in stores and ironically, in hospitals, are simply reflecting any stray virus back to us, no matter how much we disinfect them.
Not to mention the pollution caused by plastic manufacture and so-called recycling. It causes more pollution to ship used plastic bottles to a recycling factory in Asia then it would simply to wash them out and use them again.. and again. Our nonchalance at the convenience of using plastic is a big cause of ozone layer depletion and global warming/climate change, none of which is good for our immune system's ability to defend us from pathogens. In a March 19, 2020 interview Professor Sucharit Bhakdi, a leading European epidemiologist when asked on Germain TV what China and Italy have in common which would produce such high rates of infection, replied "Air pollution".
And all those pharmaceuticals, manufactured in China but taken by Americans, Europeans and many other countries who have accepted the Western Medicine model, what do you think they do to our immune systems? As mentioned in my Holistic Revolution/Ask Your Real Doctor blog , just listen to the quickly read side effects in the Prime Time News advert sections on TV, which are full of drugs for blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis and other ailments caused by incorrect diet and lifestyle. Because this Corona virus has no life of its own, the outcome of this seeming attack on humanity will very much depend not only on our conscious choices in protecting our bodies, through hygiene, diet, social distancing etc, but also on the strength of our immune systems. Until a vaccine is invented which does this, we might have to accept that exposing ourselves to mild cases of the Corona virus is the only way to build up our immune defense, and create herd immunity in the population.
If we compare the tarot images of The Emperor and The Devil, we might notice that both figures are sitting on a cube. In some versions of tarot, The Emperor is sitting on a whole cube - the Cube of Space, and his symbol of The Ram is prominent. Remember in the Old Testament story of the Passover, the children of Israel begged the Pharaoh of Egypt to set them free but he wouldn't. So their God sent 10 plagues, including frogs and locusts. The Jews were told to put the blood of a sacrificial lamb (same lamb used to symbolize Jesus in the New Testament) on the doorposts of their houses in order to escape the wrath of the angel of death. The Devil is sitting on only half a cube, symbolizing half truth. Interesting how the figure of the devil is based on a bat; The Corona virus has used bats as a host for eons, to no disadvantage to the bat, since they have such strong immune systems. Bats have a very high metabolic rate for a mammal, since they fly with "wings" which are really adaptive limbs.
As mentioned above, at this writing in late March 2020, there are three planets in Capricorn, all tightly conjunct at around 24 degrees of the sign. They are Mars, Jupiter and Pluto. And up until last week, Saturn was there too, conjuncting Pluto in January 2020. Pluto has actually been in Capricorn since 2008, when the West's financial systems crashed and went into recession. Since then, Pluto has been transforming finances, perhaps finally resulting in the end of cash, and a world of electronic debit and credit cards. The transformation has happened in industry, with the end of reliance on fossil fuels and the adoption of sustainable energy.
Perhaps the most obvious example of the Capricorn cultural mindset is Capitalism. The West has been doing very well with capitalism for hundreds of years, whereas countries like the old USSR and China have governed themselves completely with communism up until the last few decades. When China decided to adopt more capitalist policies, while still retaining a communist leadership, it sort of went wild and did all the things that the West used to do but with double the work force, which it paid pitifully. So China has lots of coal powered energy stations which produce terrible air pollution. The free-reign of capitalist policies also meant that Chinese businesses could export traditional animal based medicine all over the world. One such so-called "medicine" is Pangolin scales. Pangolins, which are mammals looking a bit like ant-eaters, were bred in factory like conditions and sold in wet markets in Chinese towns like Wuhan. Not very kosher, even for the Chinese, whose history has seen some of the greatest philosophies in the world, such as Buddhism and the Book of Changes, or I Ching, not to mention cultural icons like Confucius and Chinese cuisine. The Corona Virus apparently jumped from bats, also caged in the market, onto Pangolins, and then onto humans, mutating at each stage.
During March 2020, the planet Mercury (remember that's our intellects) went retrograde in Pisces, the sign ruled by Neptune. This is when things started to get really bad in Italy, the rest of Europe and in the US. We were made aware how important Pisces' opposite sign, Virgo, is, in its relation to hygiene. We were told to wash our hands, not touch each other, and practice social distancing. With Mercury now direct, but still covering its shadow path, we have hopefully all learned that lesson. And as Mars moves out of Capricorn and into Aquarius, it will conjunct Saturn in the first week of April. In doing so, it will therefore also square Uranus in Taurus, triggering the above mentioned Saturn-Uranus square. This is when we will probably see some real conflict in society about restrictions on freedom and liberty, as government measures to contain the virus become more stringent, perhaps even involving the military. As Mercury moves out of its shadow (the area of the Zodiac it traversed in seemingly backward motion) we will hopefully all begin to think more rationally about this crisis and perhaps see it for the wake up call that it is.
As Chiron continues its transit of Aries, it will symbolically challenge and test us all as to how we are applying the principles represented by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Our beautiful planet has recovered somewhat in the past month from the daily onslaught of pollution causing activity, resulting in clear skies, breathable air and cleaner oceans and rivers. Unfortunately, this has come at the price of a ruined economy. Will we go back to business as usual after this is over, or will be adapt capitalism to be more in balance with nature? It will symbolically ask us who we serve - the illusion of material sense appearances or the holistic grasp of life conveyed in the world's monotheistic religions. Wishing everyone, whether they believe in astrology or not, health and liberty. Stay safe and be well.
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