Chrysalis Cocktail

I was recently pondering the symbol and corresponding ancient offering of rites upon Mount Kasios (biblical Zaphon) of Ox horns, the shape of which parallels, as Peter Grey puts it, “the furthest reaches of sunrise and sunset, visible from the summit”. Such horns, having been a long time piece in my practice, had already collected various nebula of metaphysical meaning and ontological imagery giving them both a flight and weight of their own; especially in respect to their lounging not so surreptitiously at ready upon the house Moon altar, as sacred vessels which bear the wine that quickens the mind during ritual boasting. Being fluid receptacles and winding taper to a point described well their lunar nature, the waxing and waning of form and fullness, the need to be filled and drained and the resulting emotional shifts brought on by the water they bore, and possible states of inebriation or even stupor and sleep. Also is the impossibility of setting them down, like a rhombos, turbo or iunx; reminding one of the Moons status as a celestial body that does not stand direct or retrograde; it may blink black but never stops and only slows or speeds in course entirely imperceptible. Then, minding long associations with the Bull, it’s skull and horn set a symbol of female reproductive system, womb, vaginal canal, fallopian tube etc. The Bull himself is male, but the magnet of its mind is the sympathy/antipathy of yin and yang that draws Taurus onward, marching steadily across Venus’ fields; Taurus as unyielding as Venus’ Lunar cousin’s course.

My mind meandered: after Arcanum XVIIII LE SOLEIL comes XX LE IUGEMENT where the Angel’s fiery blast from a storm-cloud trumpets down upon a celestial king rising up to meet the amber tumult from the temple box of keyed into celestially constructed and consecrated space, followed by XXI LE MONDE, where our four guardians are clearly spotted around the Goddess enwreathed, these sentinels faced thusly, human, eagle, lion and ox/bull; the latter in the pentacular position corresponding to the earth. Where was the Moon and her Mansions but preceding the Sun and its Decans (as Lunar Mansions are considered to predate Solar Decans), after which comes the call of astral intervention and at last a revelation of the World, or more broadly, the Universe itself. The stellar wheel pinned to the pole star in the north, as the holy mountain itself is indeed situated to the north, comes much earlier in the Tarot’s sequence, a whole tier down numerically from LE IUGEMENT at X, the chiasmus directing us to a central spiking point, yet the weight of the second and theurgical section of the sequence is one card greater than the first phase (and holds a numerical sum of much higher value), which keeps the wheel perpetually spinning, always chasing after itself. Its this motion you may glimpse in solargraphic photos of polaris, The Greater and Lesser Bears circumambulating the pole seen as seeded concentric circles, like a frozen pond eddy.

The hapax legonenom word Mazzaroth within the bible is a hebrew term, unlike hebenon in Hamlet, the former term has been generally identified to mean Zodiac (whereas such quicksilverian secrets as hebenon shant be so widely whispered lest they cease to yield their poisons after potential victims extinctions reach a fatal zenith; ie all of the Ten of Cups chalices filled with poison drought would end in Jonestown) Being one of the terms only used once in the text we are lent the sense of a singular point with which to fix our pole and a where to hang our hub. Another such point might be the solstice itself, symbolized by the cross quartered globe, or the perpendicular belts dissecting a sphere into meridians, as the solstice points or Southern and Northern, Cancerian and Capricornian respectively, gates of incarnation and ex-carnation, where the soul in transmigration/metampsycosis enters and exits the manifest reality, or, sublunar sphere, that which is visible on earth under the eyes of the Sun and Moon. So, if there is a Solar as well as Lunar eye, might there then be a Solar as well as Lunar horn. And indeed, we see if we look at a solargraph (long exposure photograph) taken in a Southerly direction (from the Northern hemisphere) that extends from winter solstice to summer solstice we get an arching, twisting sort of shape coming to a relative point at the tip, very reminiscent of the horn on oxen, steer and highland cattle and their ilk. From summer to winter solstice we find our opposite horn. This led me to pondering the cone cells of our ocular anatomy, and then oracular hyperbole in general; the soundings of which plunge too deep into Isiah’s “sides”, and might only serve to lead us into dark caves of glossolalia with only Dante’s Inferno as a lantern, rendering this forecast no more than the garbled goetic gab of Nimrod in the 9th circle of Hell.

The Summer Solstice occurs as the Sun enders 0 degrees Cancer at 12:24 am June 21st 2017 (EST). The Solar Eye shines copious light into the Moon’s watery cavern, our world, Plato’s hollow of earth. Yang lumination radiates into the cloisters of Yin, as the Moon is nearing her waning circle only a few days behind, heading toward new moon conjunction around 10:23 pm on the evening of the 23rd, Mars’s-night, who will be wallowing uncomfortably ten degrees deeper in the pool; the king and queen disrobed step into the steam room preceded by their ambassador, translator and scribe, only to spy their warrior without weapons, having a bath. This is how official Summer begins. The Sun and Mercury had met and counseled two days prior, on the day of the solstice, at 10:05 am, the Messanger with earpeice and headset on, in communication with the Olympian base station, which in Plethon’s perspective, extends contact far outside of time and space itself, and in a reductive sense, outside of our solar cellular system. The king receives the cosmic scoop just after the Queen Almost-Entirely-Dark takes leave of her handmaiden and Midwife, Venus, within the verdant garden, and heads across the palace to meet His Majesty for a scheduled rendezvous in her own chamber. Venus and the waning crescent come conjunct on Tuesday June 20th at 6:22 pm. The fact that this occurs on Mars’-day as well as the New Moon seems somewhat significant: the Red Planet getting to voice the discomfort of its Fall; the whiny warrior who’s forced to lay and recover from his wounds while stewing and seething with battle-lust; or; these more feminine transitions going unhindered while Venus rules and Mars floats in suspension. This sets an appropriate solstice tone, as fraternization and liaison whether familial or of lust/love are central to light and shone over Cancer’s water. Visualize the Twins of the Sun card, one helping the other across the watery divide and up on to an opposite bank. They are Geminiic, as the Sun heading toward its longest reign of light will be coming via Gemini way toward Cancer’s watery threshold.

Venus and the Moon’s conversation will be in tight sextile to newly retrograde Neptune, who is busy sucking all the Eleusinian elixir back out of the punch bowl; they might forego words, which can be misconstrued, and definitively slip objects of import into each others pockets as they exchange meaningful glances. Despite Neptune’s illusory libation being quickly corked in late Gemini, the lunar waters begin to copiously fill the dales and depressions of earth as the Sun, Mercury and the Moon all step into Cancer on and just after the solstice, painting a far wetter landscape than the one Neptune occasionally mists with Piscean spritz. The aerial, horizontal, mental energy that has been abuzz for the entire Solar month of Gemini, as well as the persistent Grand Fire trine running in the background of our program like a latent musical triangle that gets struck every twenty-eight days by the Moon, as she does on Monday the 19th just before conjoining volatile Uranus, showers the vibrating air the three days before the solstice with sparks as silver and lead and electrified steel collide in the inter-dimensional superconductor, ambiently elsewhere, but the firefly showers in our auras are real, and lend this build up to the longest day of light the kinetic atmosphere of a lunation waxing to fullness even though Luna now wanes toward darkness. On the 22nd the luminary light flips and by the 23rd the Queen is handed the sword, slaying the Oak King and Crowning the Holly King once more, then the Sun though shining for extended stretches has passed its apex and must learn again what its like to wane. This is appropriate for the King’s time in Cancer; he lays his eyes upon both tides and menses, and through Mercury’s aid, consider’s the Cosmic mother that created all, the Sun visiting the crossroads, as Nut’s river of stellar milk intersects with his tropical path, right at Platonic Zeus’ threshold star-gate.

The stars we will see on the surface of ponds over the next week won’t be mere reflections, but sinew strands like spider’s silk that lace from firmament heights through particle holes they skewer our world on a string, an orb bead of prayer for the fingers to feel in murmur of chant, the one who waits in “sides” of celestial shadow and generates that which might then may emerge; for this we need darkness as much as light, but for this season such as naps bookend blink us awake in radiant stele marble flanks and dimples of warm touch flesh impression, the dews that linger veils and run temperate to torture torment swamp patch clefts that hold their ribs tight for thought of ice, in just a spell the summer comes and here we are to lick its palms and taste its work, as the warrior rises out of soup, the crescent on the far end of the onager eye, braying as the fire barks and sparks leap up to catch finch fleas as strips of moth wings belt the bales we perch upon in rub-eye dusk, as the wet and dripping Mother Of All leans in obelisk obliteration; the dawn eye skewered with a spike, and two gobs of twisting darkness reach into the skull of certain statues. Its all as light as white Mercury night in detail the ripple and eddy that distorts the stellar mirror of the pond beneath which stands in Hellenic poise the divers frozen bronze eyed pyrite cheeks passed by tadpoles in the greenish glaze of star infested water.

Gone will be for much of July that technical talking curious creature invented by Mercury and the Sun in Gemini, and as the Messenger returns from deep space with news of gnosis to give a Shellfish King, a hibernating Amphibian General and a Shadow Queen, his words unfurl like exponential rinceaux. If that sounds a little ‘Little Mermaid’, its supposed to, with no care to hide that Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is perhaps not just its predecessor but its prequel. That dominant feature of the early to mid summer as a realm of sensation and feeling rather than ideas, even though there is plenty of time spent up all night talking, its not the serious stone settings of winter’s intellectual chisels. Its barebreasted chat in longform, literal ear chewing and tongue twisting; shouting and singing, a bit of ululating, or a lot, now that emotion is returning to our sphere en mass.

And, as usual, with a mass of emotion comes much turbulence. On Saturday the 24th the Moon comes to conjunct Mars at 3:11 pm, the newly Sliver-Crescent Queen (more in title than appearance) swims over to our sodden Warrior’s end of the pool, and checks in on his physical therapy session. This might be the chance for her to apply the balm he needs, but also is a moment that she might catch his contagion. While they are conjunct they square Jupiter as well as trine Neptune. Illusions of Mars’ condition are stripped away, as now it is plainer to see that he is in rough shape, the size and seriousness of his wounds, or more importantly, how deeply he suffers and how much longer until his recovery is felt and known. This is clearly upsetting to martial alliances that simply cannot at this time be brought into agreement, and the only course is to draw a circle of protection around your home and person, then make offerings to the four winds and the cardinal sentinels of the directions, the seasons, in this absence of your army it is to all orders of spirit you must petition. Venus’ simultaneous Pluto sextile to this aspect portends a blight for the crops, which might echo the deleterious nature of the Queen’s contact with our wounded Warrior, or, considering Pluto is in retrograde, Luna might desire to push Mars the rest of the way beneath the water and look to elect a new lieutenant. This would be unwise, as there is simply no stand in for Mars. His period of convalescence will not be complete until July 20th, but when he remerges recovered it will be into newly restored glory, as the Sun follows him into rulership and then consults with him on new cycles of power when they come conjunct in Leo on July 26th.

A series of difficult aspects lead us from the 24th into July, which is not to say all disruptions to concrete plans, but rather the catching up of emotional processing after a long period (which included two dramatic retrogrades) of heavy fire and air element activity. The dynamics that have allowed us to mentally and spiritually transform and mutate ourselves and our lives as well as the world around us throughout 2017 now extend themselves into the watery parts of our souls, where our colloids steep in their herbaceous and mineral constituents and for the first time we taste our own brews and express how we feel for what we’ve become. This, of course, is part of the work, and is central to the great dowsing of our metamorphosis, as we drink deep the fluid within our own chrysalis.