Hudson Valley Astrologer

III            Commentaries

Conveying in words the full meaning of Taurus as “container” and “possessor,” as the material being “that holds all the other dimensions within itself,” is impossible to do without flat out plagiarizing, which is not my intention since these are My Notes for The Magical Carousel. PLEASE order the book by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet and read Thea in her own words, because although these notes are helping me with my own comprehension and understanding, I’m not sure the message isn’t being mangled with my own biases and perspectives seeping into the discussion. That said, the story in Gemini opens with the children being released from the cage which contained them, until “they are free!” But Thea presents a much deeper appreciation for the previous sign, Taurus, in the commentaries stating that “The form of material universe is thus Taurus, and its ruler, Venus, is the womb of creation. She is not Mother Nature, or Prakriti of Hindu tradition. This aspect is unveiled further on, — namely in Cancer. Venus as the womb of Matter holds all the forms in their subtle dimension within herself. Hence Venus in the sky is veiled, for she refers to the subtle dimensions of forms, the upholder of the denser manifestations.”

Thea expounds on these ideas later in her book The Gnostic Circle on page 144 where she depicts Venus and Mars “locked in orbit around the Earth and veiling the rays emanating from the two would be the Moon, spinning in its orbit around the Earth and creating the ego that protects man until he is able to receive the purer force without danger to his instrument.” Followers of my blog and posts on social media may have observed a new logo which is a digital recreation of this concept, and something I call The Astral Core, it is a mockup of Thea’s drawing that describes the human condition. Here, in TMC, she refers to Venus being veiled in the sky, but it is more explicit in TGC, there it is the Moon, the Ego, which throws shade on human development, or as Peter Gabriel put it in his song The Blood of Eden, “… the darkness still has work to do.”

In Taurus we are confined to a “picture book” and not yet ready for a “storybook” because things are yet named, but as existence congeals and densifies words begin taking shape; “objects or planes of consciousness become concrete elements and are ‘named’, or given body, as it were.” As language enters the picture so does the presence and the effect of the Mind. I read TGC prior to reading TMC which is not the preferred order I should think, but students come into this work at any level based on what draws them to the Knowledge. Thea did introduce early in TGC the notion that the three modalities are tied to the Hindu Triune gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; how these god forces relate to the modalities or qualities of each sign, Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable, follows the schema of the Zodiac. In the first quadrant we see how Aries relates to the “Speaker,” the creator as Brahma, Taurus relates to the Voice which becomes the intermediator between the Speaker and the Word, Gemini. A connection is made between the signs and the ruling planets, as the Sun is exalted in Aries and ruled by Mars, Mars gains his power from the essence of the Sun, astrologers immediately see that, “The Sun is transmuted in this sign, and Mars is the ‘Son of the Sun,” so to speak. She continues, “The Speaker of Aries holds these elements in his Consciousness-Being, and on the basis of his tremendous thrust, they are set on the way of evolution.” She notes here that Aries rules the head, which in Sun sign and natal astrology, seems to miss the point of what that rulership implies.

Back to Taurus and its ruler, Venus, Thea points out how the shape of the glyph for Venus resembles the larynx, which seems at first an obvious thing to point out, but I’ve not seen this mentioned elsewhere. What is born of the Speaker, and the Voice, what Thea calls “accumulated power,” is the Word, or the Child. “The release of Power from the Voice is the breath upon which the Word is born.” The glyph too in this case provides a literal description of the concepts conveyed by Gemini as the symbol relates to the parts of the body ruled by Gemini: the arms, and the lungs for example, which make this connection. Thea closes these thoughts with this comment that “in this preliminary triad therefore, we are given a concise vision of the reality of creation and the method for its progression.”

I am quoting with abandon here, but need to do so again, because Thea makes this next point repeatedly, on her many platforms and pieces she put out to the public. “Our universe — or this Body of the Mother — is hence made of the stuff of the breath of the Spirit, and to call this universe illusion, unreality, Maya, the sinful Eve, and the like, is thus to deny the reality of the transcendent Spirit.” This point is the entire reasoning behind why I chose the tagline — “Astrology rooted in the reality of the World.”

The result of the primordial cosmic energy, Shakti, fusing with the Creator, Brahman, is realized in the Word, Gemini. This framework of Father, Mother, Child is replete in all “metaphysical, philosophical, and theological traditions throughout the world.”

As creation moved into Gemini, giving birth to Mind, a refinement process began, and as those ideas took flight division was conceptualized and then came “a separation in consciousness.” For all the commentary in the world presently, in terms of what ails the planet, with its polemical discourse and polarity in the body politic, this one phrase sums it all up brilliantly, that we are today experiencing “a separation in consciousness.” Thea states the Mind’s “purpose in the universal manifestation is precisely to cause an acute separation in consciousness to enable the process of awareness of the original state of unity to become consciously undertaken.”

The elements tie into the process too, with Fire signs more broadly representing Spirit, while Earth corresponds to Matter, and Air signs communicate varying levels of Mind. Within Gemini, there is growing awareness of there being a split between the Mind and Consciousness-Being. This condition is too easily overlooked in the characters who pull off being different from each other as almost seamless. As progress continues and later Air signs are attained (Libra and Aquarius) perception enables consciousness to become aware of division no matter how subtle. Readers are introduced to the attributes of Gemini in this chapter; the rote conditioning of the school atmosphere, “—rigid and intolerant of any innovation.” Gemini is a land of words and there are names for everyone and everything. Authority is not questioned, and the learning is limited to whatever is in the book, nothing of an emergent Mind exists yet, an attribute Thea assigns to Sagittarius. Gemini is also clearly asexual in the story, which is a “characteristic of the mental consciousness in its purest cosmic nature.” Gemini is the dimension of neutrality and superficiality because there is an “absence of a strong display of vital force”. This might be explained as a deprivation of Mars energy when compared to Aries, and why such easily distracted energy lacks emotional involvement.

“Earth is home of the psyche in evolution; in consequence the emotional nature is a major force in our world, be this either for good or for bad.” Any imbalance erupts in distortions of development that devolve into disharmony. One devolution is “an excess of sentimentalism.” But the crying doesn’t stop until later in the journey where “there is evidence of a unified being, enjoying a more balanced poise and attuned to the influx of the various powers in creation in such a way as to permit an integral development of being...”

Norelli-Bachelet, P. (2017). The Magical Carousel and Commentaries: A Zodiacal Odyssey (2017th ed.). Notion Press, Inc.