Hudson Valley Astrologer

V Commentaries

My notes on Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s Commentaries. Please see footnote for information on the source of this essay, or simply go to the source: The Magical Carousel.

Many spiritual traditions rely on the motif of “sacred mysteries”, namely some trinity that follows the progression of Father, Mother, and Child. The pattern is useful in conveying universal principles that are easy for seekers to relate to in the sense that we are all a product of the same natural process. The significance of the unveiling of a “hidden power”, at the end of the fourth chapter, introduces a subtle discovery that all past traditions seem to miss. The addition of a missing element, or principle, essential to the continuation of the unfolding of the “tree of life”. More specifically, in terms of what Thea is referring to in her model, the cosmic unfolding of consciousness in evolution. Leo represents a new quadrant, which means that the journey has entered a new manifestation (6,480 years in the making, or three signs). She further suggests that the “power” discovered near the end of the previous chapter (the previous Age) in Cancer is a joyous realization that embodies ALL four principles (Father, Mother, Child, AND the Fourth One, the child of the child). In the fifth chapter, “The Masculine Principle”, all four principles emerge “by virtue of their embodiment according to the harmony and subtle rhythms of Earth-time.”

Thea associates Cancer with Prakriti, and Leo with Purusha (“… as the upholding witness-consciousness principle is called in Hindu terminology”). In the story, the King of Day personifies this concept. He was witness to the Queen of Night’s myriad expressions of form and material energy, fascinated for a time, but tired of the reproduction of only girls, “roses and not trees” she writes in the commentaries. Symbolically, “roses” correspond to the girls of Cancer in the story. The “seed” is planted, so the Mother and Father principles embodied by Cancer and Leo take shape in this context. It is pointed out at this point of the story that the “entire zodiac… is a synthetic vision of the triadic play of energy these basic principles embody. Hence Father, Mother, Child will always come forth in the tale, under one guise or another, for there is only this in our manifest world.”

The King of Day’s upset relates to his anguish over not having an heir, imagining that the journey (evolution) ends with him. Failing somehow in upholding what is his most important responsibility, to be witness. The glyph for Leo makes this correspondence clear in that the small circle with a tail has the appearance of being more like a spermatozoon than it does a lion’s tail, and this observation suggests that the lion was a zodiacal association that was made much later. Cancer too represents the ovum which is fertilized by the sperm. Another fascinating observation is how these concepts were “discovered” eons before the discoveries of modern science. In some sense technology enabled the human eye “to see” the form that the ancients had already identified as the “paternal principle.”

Thea wrote in the early seventies, how sexual differentiation in human embryology begins in a neutral state, the process from which male and female organs develop gestate from neutral embryonic structures. In the beginning, the fetus is feminine and, as reflected in the story, male hormones become “active” only after an “unveiling”. Zooming in on the process, the fetus emerges first from a neutral state (Gemini), but without some “interception” in the process of male hormones, then indeed all births would be female. Some imposition must occur for a male fetus to form, and the window of opportunity is quite small where this can occur, but the gist of the change is that the “interception” occurs at the cellular level, mirroring the macro level.

Amazingly, this writing has aged well. Passing the test of time. Thea used the map of the zodiac, which “revealed this biological truth” from time immemorial. Without a Seed, there is no possibility for a new beginning, at any level, from the microscopic to the organic. “The Seed is indispensable.” The play, which began in Aries, has now advanced to the second Fire Sign Leo. Cancer was the first Water Sign and displays the principle of containment in a way which corresponds with Taurus, and hence connected by the Moon, which rules Cancer and is exalted in Taurus. Similarly, the Sun is exalted in Aries, while ruling Leo. As Thea put it “The observer can readily understand the relation between these four signs, and that what Aries and Taurus signify in cosmic, or atomic dimensions, Cancer and Leo represent in the evolution of the human body. Seed and receiving Womb are truths of the macrocosm of infinite dimension, and at the same time they are the two fundamental elements in the conception and gestation of the Earth’s species.” This visualization suggests that together Cancer and Leo represent the cradle of humanity, the beginning of the Tree of Life, which branches out to the rest of the signs in the zodiac. Therefore, the King was obsessed with having “trees” and not only “roses” in his enthrallment of the Queen. But Thea adds a twist to the story by suggesting that the children didn’t arrive “in the usual way.” They appeared in a special window of time, a rare incidence, and an “interception” of another order altogether. Still, the King was caught unawares, and Thea relates this happening to a “fundamental key in the zodiac,” in how the Signs Cancer and Leo relate to one another, AND to the Whole. The King’s preparedness and effort to roll out the carpet for his guests, to honor and entertain them, was unexpectedly derailed. “An unknown element interrupted the King’s Play!” Consciousness development has only come so far in the story. “We are still in the lower hemisphere of being at this stage, in the realm of Prakriti, and Purusha and not the land of the Supreme Shakti and the Transcendental Iswara.” Therefore the ‘play’ is at the mercy of the regent powers of Mind and the Vital centers. In this realm Mind and Emotions rule and correspond with the “lower manifesting principles.” As the journey progresses into the higher realms, the upper hemisphere, evolution is no longer susceptible to “the calamities or felicities that accidents may bring”. But since the story is still in the lower realm, the children are called on once again to carry out their heroic antics, and to ‘save the day’.

“But the lower hemisphere is, nonetheless, enamored of its darkness.” The King, in his enthusiasm for discovering an heir, wants to possess the boy. In such a role the boy would be restricted to the duties of the kingdom and limited to carrying out these duties in the Land of Leo. The tension builds quickly since we already know from previous chapters that the children are on a precise schedule. “Leo is ruled by the Sun. But it is not the physical sun that is the source of light for these beings. Theirs is the light of the eye of consciousness that sees, and whose unfolding vision is the power of creation of our material universe. This is the ‘Sun’ into which Fritz plunged in his mad escape to the origins of his line, — the exalted Sun that initiates the wheel in Aries. And it is a Seed from that Sun that the children must transmit to others: the seeds of a new consciousness-being. Leo is that exalted Sun materialized in our physical universe, and our particular solar system. Consciousness densifies, for the purpose of the evolution in Time of the involved consciousness-Seed.”

Evolution has not yet reached its upright position, Thea observes how the spine of the lion is horizontal, and that higher stages will demand a vertical poise. The drama which ensues, especially when the journey reaches the Fixed Signs of Preservation, is necessary to create a big enough burst of energy to escape the grip of entropy. Some force is required to keep the movement intact. In Taurus, the children were “butted out of the land by Bull.” In Leo, the lion’s roar is all that is required, and suffices to keep the movement going. Thea calls the roar the “voice in its second mode of expression,” describing it as “more physical,” echoing the description of Leo as the Exalted Sun materialized. Stricken with fear, the children leap up and fall into the smokestack, and begin a vertical descent. Aries represented a primordial jungle of abundance, “of energy particles, that great dance of Shiva.” Leo represents a more organized form at this stage of evolution and relates to the physical body. The next fire Sign introduces further “potentials for the expansion of the consciousness beyond Mind, wherein the element of the higher consciousness principles first come into being.”

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