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Spiritual Meditations and Exercises Brotherhood of Light Lessons: Course Books on Astrology, Alchemy and Tarot Member Forum - Connecting with Members of Our Community
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Spiritual Aries March 21 thru April 21 Keyword: I Am Best quality: Leadership Synonyms: active, ambitious, being, bossy, bureaucratic, character, combative, control, dauntless, direction, ego, egocentric, endurance, enterprising, enthusiastic, executive, exist, facade, fiery, forceful, fussy, headstrong, governance, guidance, identity, imperious, impulsive, independent, intelligent, interfering, intrusive, makeup, management, meddlesome, militant, nature, optimistic, overbearing, perceptive, person, persona, personality, pioneering, self-important, temperament, vain. Passover: Ancient and Modern…
“There is no death! Each spring, the Sun reaches the sign of the Ram to begin its annual journey through the zodiac. It comes with a softly perceptible, gentle buzz of nature bouncing back to life. It is a joyful time of year. Bulbs that lay hidden, during the hard cold of winter, peek through the warming earth, reminding us of this glorious renewal of life to come. The arrival of spring also marks an important psychological moment. Longer, warmer days remind the soul that the dread and dreary privation of winter is giving way to hope for an easier existence in the days to come. We feel alive and excited for the changes to come. In celestial mechanics, we call this time of equal night and day the equinox. When the Sun passes over the Vernal Equinox into Aries, a new year begins. It represents the passing over to the summer half of the year from the months of winter darkness. The constant and reliable cycles of Nature remind us that even in our darkest moments the sun’s light and warmth will once again increase and in so doing bring the gift of freedom, movement, plenty and life-sustaining warmth. Anciently and modernly, this time of year has been celebrated with great anticipation. In the Americas, the Hopi people recognized that better days were ahead when the sun first popped up behind a certain peak of the San Francisco mountain range. Each morning the Sun climbed farther northward along its path. Then, one morning its fiery globe appeared: balanced atop the peak's lofty spire. Days and nights were equal. The dreary hold of winter’s privation gave way to celebration and hope for a better future. In the language of universal symbolism the winter half of the circle, in which the darkness exceeds the light, represents the physical world and its obscuring clouds of misconceptions. Spiritual life is represented by the summer half of the celestial circle. The Jewish tradition of Passover symbolically tells the story of the spiritual transformation that is symbolized by the time of year when the Sun passes from darkness into light. Not only among the Jewish people, but among other ancient people, the first entrance of the Sun into the sign Aries was associated with the birth or beginning of the Ram, that is, it was considered to signify a Lamb. Using the blood of a Lamb as a token that a new and spiritual life had been entered upon was not a custom confined to Christians and Jews; it was part of the universal symbolism employed by all peoples who had inherited traditions based upon stellar correspondences. The land of Egypt was referred to by the Jewish people as the land of darkness, corresponding to the dark signs of the zodiac, in which the Sun is prisoner before it passes over into the summer signs. The sign from which the Sun passes into Aries is Pisces. On its darker side, Pisces is associated with imprisonment and slavery and the Israelites were captives in Egypt. Symbolically, this is the story of every person. Who among us has not felt the dark night of the soul where we have felt captive to the unknown, undesired or what seems like a dark and bleak future? Yet, if we ready ourselves, experience tells us that the light will increase and life will be renewed and the cycle will repeat anew. Aries is a militant sign, indicating energy and movement. So it is when the Sun moves into Aries and crosses over the vernal equinox, life begins a slow yet quickening bustle of energy. The Jewish people at the first Passover feast were instructed to attend “with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste.” The people were plainly prepared to go places and do things. The daubing of the lintels with the blood of a Lamb portrays, in universal symbolism, the belief of those who originated the ceremony that we enter physical life through a doorway of pain and suffering, and that we take our departure to the next life through another doorway no less difficult. Yet because the blood used is that of the animal by which birth and happier days are represented, it also expresses the conviction that the new life will be an improvement over the one from which the Passover has been made. In a still broader sense the Passover of the year has its counterpart in the precessional cycle. Instead of the Sun passing over the Vernal Equinox, the boundary between sections of the stellar circle does the passing. The earth has recently (late 1800’s) passed over from the Piscean Age into the Aquarian Age. Pisces, the sign from which the world is passing, rules such things as imprisonment and restrictions as well as crime and its punishment. Religions born of the Piscean Age often describe a heaven, which to most would be nothing more than a prison, and taught a doctrine threatening the possibility of everlasting torment in hell. But a new day is dawning, and however chaotic, it promises a brighter future. With one hand, the man symbolizing Aquarius measures the influence of the stars, and with the other, pours down his blessings. Right now the world is enduring the pangs of its birth into a heaven of new knowledge. The blood on the door posts is emblematic of the incidents of this passing. Aries has been given the Key phrase, I Am, on account of those born under this influence, more than other people, view things from the standpoint of Individual survival and expression. Because of this, because they are headstrong pioneers who venture into new lands, and because it is here that the transition from death to new life symbolically takes place, it is eminently fitting that the ancients associated the Ram with their teachings of survival. The text they sought to convey by Aries has been expressed by the poet: “There is no death! Paraphrased from Spiritual Astrology by C. C. Zain **************
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