CHAPTER ONE
Three Centuries of Crisis - 2
A human being's activity is ruled originally and primarily by the central power of the life-energy within him, which we may call his self — i. e. the particular rhythm of his own bio-psychic organism always seeking to maintain, preserve and reproduce itself. But no human being normally lives alone. He was at first member of a tribe, which constituted a most definite psychic (as well as biological and ethnic) whole living normally in a very defined geographical area — even if that area was somewhat extensive in the case of nomadic pastoral groups. As member of this tribe he is controlled by specific loyalties; he obeys taboos and customs which define the basic rhythm of life of the community-as-a-whole. The tribesman is a lesser bio-psychic whole subjected to structural and quasi-instinctual forms of activity — some of which may completely overcome his own rhythm and his drive for self-preservation and security.
Tribal communities become integrated into empires or modern nations; and a time almost inevitably will come when individual human beings will consider themselves as "lesser wholes" directly related without intermediaries to the "greater whole," Humanity — and indeed to the entire planetary field of activities which we call the earth, the one "home" of all men at that level of consciousness. The pull of "Humanity" is indeed today affecting powerfully many individual persons, who dedicate their lives to "humanitarian" purposes (at one level or another) and are ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the formation of a "global" society structured by moral and legal principles.
If now we consider our solar system, we have reached a knowledge of astronomy enabling us to see this solar system as one of a multitude of such systems, or of various types of stellar organizations, contained within our vast galaxy. In terms of astrological symbolism — if of nothing else that we as yet are able to know — we may say, following the preceding line of reasoning, that the planets of our solar system may be divided into two groups. The planets up to and including Saturn are entirely under the influence of the gravitational power of the Sun, but the three newly discovered planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, while still obeying this solar pull, are focal points through which the influence of the greater cosmic whole, the galaxy, is growing in power.
Every organized system of activity is subjected to two opposite pulls: centripetal force from the center of the system, and a centrifugal force which represents the urge to become related to and (in time) identified with the activities of the next "greater whole." In our solar system the actual boundaries within which the sun-ward centripetal pull is dominant are represented by Saturn, which, symbolically, is surrounded by a ring. Saturn, in the tradition of astrology, stands for the principle of limitation and of "form" in a particularistic and isolating sense. It refers to the principle of stability and security, to logic and to the ego that separates men while establishing their "name" and their inalienable social identity — also to the skeleton which limits, but affirms, the structural character of the body. On the other hand, the planets beyond Saturn symbolize these forces in human nature (some would say bey ond human nature) that impel men to reach beyond strictly defined, rational, exclusivistic modes of thinking, feeling and behavior.
I have spoken of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto figuratively as "ambassadors of the Galaxy" to our solar system. They are there, as it were, to show to whatever exists within the boundaries of Saturn a way out and beyond. They represent universalizing forces which forever tend to make of lesser wholes agents at the service of the greater Whole. In religious terms they may be said to symbolize the triune divinity latent in every man — the divinity which at a certain time of growth and crisis in an individuals life may begin to challenge the pulls of the sun and the planets bound to the solar power, and eventually may come to be the dominant influence in the life of the man self-consecrated to so-called "spiritual" tasks. Such a consecration leads such a man (or woman) to follow a socially and culturally non-conforming course of action, because his mind and feelings have become repolarized and reoriented — away from the sun and toward the galaxy, away from his ego and toward the welfare of humanity and an ever closer identification with whatever has structured and now guides the evolution of the earth and of Man.
The student of the many aspects of what has become known quite awkwardly, as "esoteric philosophy" — or in terms of older religious traditions, mysticism — speaks today of the "Path." To state that one is eager and ready to "enter upon the Path" means, in astrological symbolism, that one has become definitely responsive to energies which will increasingly bring men to a state of resonance to (and eventually of identification with) the broader rhythms of that vast cosmic Whole, the galaxy — the realm of the stars. Uranus, Neptune and Pluto represent in such an operative symbolism the three basic phases of a process of repolarization and universalization of consciousness. We can visualize them as "stations" along this Path which leads man to the great "Initiation," as a result of which he becomes more-than-man, and (in religious terms) god-like.
What is implied in the concept of the Path is a dramatic increase in the speed of human evolution. This "steep and narrow" Path is often contrasted with the "highway of life" which is broad and open, and upon which the masses of mankind move slowly but mostly blindly in close togetherness, pushed by vast structural Forces acting within man as instinctual compulsions. An individual person on the Path is supposed to achieve in a relatively short time what humanity normally takes countless millennia to accomplish. However, there may be times during which the whole of humanity is stirred by an extraordinary ferment of growth, and during these dynamic times a relatively large number of individuals may come to maturity who feel powerfully the urge to begin this dangerous process of accelerated evolution. If their number is great enough they may polarize by their restless search and the tensions of their wills (and of their despairs also) the "descent" of super-planetary forces — forces which we may interpret in religious terms as emanating from "God" or as powers inherent in the galaxy but at those times being focused in some unknown manner upon humanity (and perhaps upon the planet as a whole).
By permission of Leyla Rudhyar Hill
Copyright © 1969 by Dane Rudhyar
and Copyright © 2001 by Leyla Rudhyar Hill All Rights Reserved.
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