By Arthur Gordon Eames, (C. of the O. London)
NOTE: Childbirth was never intended by nature to be a painful process. If Humanity synchronized its powers of fecundation and propagation with the Nature forces as outlined in the following article, it would soon return to its original standard of vigor and equilibration of the Physical and Spiritual potentialities.
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The Sun is to us a symbol of the Spirit, and its annual journey round the Heavens symbolizes the pilgrimage of the Virgin Spirit through involution and evolution, the various stages of which are denoted by the Zodiacal Signs.
On or about the 21st of each moth the Sun enters a new Zodiacal Sign and, it is at the Vernal Equinox (about the 21st of March) that the Sun enters the first degree of the first sign Aries.
In this sign the Virgin Spirit feels within itself the first impulse toward activity, the beginning of desire for expression. The entry into the second sign, Taurus, denotes that this desire for expression or activity has become formulated into an objective and separative (i.e. earthy) idea. Both these signs denote purely spiritual conditions before the crystallisation process has begun.
The third sign Gemini (the twins) is a dual sign, for here the first two signs unite and the Principle of Polarity first becomes apparent. This is the sign when activity begins, for the Cosmic Intelligence here plans the details of the future system. It therefore denotes intelligence and may perhaps be better thought of as the principle of mind, the base of all that is to be carried out in the following signs. Aries symbolizes Will. Taurus symbolizes Wisdom, and Gemini symbolizes Activity.
On or about June 21st the Sun begins its entry into Cancer and involution properly speaking begins. The Virgin Spirit here has implanted into it the spiritual consciousness of its future objective life which in Leo becomes sensational, that is to say, the Spirit feels within itself its ability for future self expression.
In Virgo the consciousness and feeling of the form of life that is to be, has become involved into the Realm of Thought which in Libra is crystallized and projected as an objective creation. The Sun enters this sign on or about September 21st; when it re-crosses the celestial equator beginning its descent into darkness and winter, symbolising the descent into Matter. At this stage Man receives the rudimentary dense body.
The separate forms acting and re-acting one upon the other produce the beginning of feeling and sensation denoted in Scorpio.
Feeling and sensation eventually lead to reflection upon the different sensations produced by varying occurrences and objects leading to Thought, shown by the sign Sagittarius.
Now as the human ability to think becomes more perfected in the course of millions of years and Man is less subject to his personal sensations and emotions in his reflective powers, reason tells him that there must be an object in his existence, and if an object in his, then there must be one in that of all other creatures and things. That will give him a consideration for and better feelings toward other beings, the necessity and reason for which he had not previously recognized or even suspected.
This brings us down to December 24th, ushering in the day on which Christ was born into the world, meaning in this case that the better nature of man or the Christ Spirit has been born in the individual by reason of his recognition of his responsibilities to others.
This date synchronises with the entry of the Sun into the sign Capricorn, the great virtue of which is Service. It is midwinter and the point of greatest density for as soon as the Christ Spirit is born in Man he begins on his upward path towards light and the summer, which is to come.
The sign following Capricorn is Aquarius, which is the perfected man and Pisces, the last sign is that of devotion and self sacrifice. The Sun passes out of this sign about March 21st soon after which comes Easter. At this time the regenerated Spirit having completed the whole process of involution and evolution dies the death of and on the Cross of Matter, to be born again into a greater and wider form of existence symbolised by the beginning of a new Solar Year.
By correspondence this annual solar journey is also the story of one incarnation of one human Ego.
Aries is the stage in which the lessons of the previous incarnation have been absorbed and the time approaching for a new one.
In Gemini this has been mentally recognised and the Ego descends through the Worlds of Thought, Cancer, the Astral World, Leo, and the Etheric World Regions Virgo, to be born again into this world denoted by Libra. Then to evolve his abilities. First comes his consciousness of self or personality, Scorpio; secondly, intellect, Sagittarius. So far as the three Zodiacal signs are concerned he will reflect just as much of their nature as he has evolved out of himself. Consequently he may not be able to grow into that condition denoted by Capricorn, where he will recognise the virtue of Service, if his evolutionary status is not sufficiently advanced, but will return again to continue his evolution.