Hudson Valley Astrologer

My Notes on The Magical Carousel by Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet, chapter twelve, Picses.¹

Unity, The Return to Origin

The pressure inside the jug expands and Val and Pom-pom can feel the currents pushing them toward the edge of the container, the forces build, something is getting ready, to shatter the jar, to breakout and begin a total transformation, to start the process of massive change. But first the barriers of containment need to be lifted, the limitations that are held and holding things back need to be broken through, and so the children are thrust repeatedly up against the lid at the top of the jug. They see a symbol and the number 12. Suddenly the children are overjoyed at the prospect of using the final key. As soon as they turn the key in the latch the lid pops off the jug of its own accord, and the cyclonic forces which surround them stream out into the last realm of the journey.

The children are protected in the center of the mighty swirl, enraptured by the flow of energy and the surprising change of events. The sudden change of direction invites wondrous feelings of joy, an elated sense of bliss. Down they go in a passionate descent that reaches super-sonic speeds until they hit water. Kerplunk! The whirling winds of Air shift, their currents transitioning in an elemental way from one mode of expression to another, and into a massive body of Water. Once submerged, they stir things up and create a “radiant whirlpool” where gushing flows and circular eddies carry the children, tumbling around like they’re stuck on the soak cycle of a washer machine, but suspended inside the bubbly froth, tucked safely inside the coming wave, until finally they come to rest on the backs of two odd looking fish. But the fish swim in opposite directions around the whirling water, passing one another enroute, retracing the other’s path.

Pom-pom struggles from a fear of drowning amid the deluge, and understandably worried about not taking on too much water. Shouting aloud to his sister that he can’t swim, he betrays a temporary sense of limitation within himself. The fish find this hilarious since as they put it, “You’re in a cosmic sea! You’ve always been swimming in a cosmic sea, only unawares.”

The finned friends elaborate further stating:

“There’s no beginning and no end to this sea! You’ve always been in it.”

But to Val’s mind the fish seemed a little “mad”. She tells her brother to just tighten his grip and hold on the best he can. Round they go, merrily, in coordination with the music being whistled by the fish. The whistling encourages a certain pace or rhythm, but simultaneously also helps them keep the rhythm they are whistling to. In other words, music creates the rhythm, but also sustains the rhythm; it keeps the music going. The children then comment on how bouncy the ride is…

And once again the fish respond cryptically:

“Bouncy, you say! Maybe, but have no fear. Even if you fall, where would you fall to? There’s not an end nor beginning you see to this cosmic sea.”

Pom-pom admits to feeling a little dizzy by the monotonous motion and asks the fish he is on whether the ride will continue like this forever… and on queue the fish responds:     

“Forever is never and never is forever, and now is then and then is now, and gone is coming and coming is gone, and to be has been and been always was…

What was your question?”

Exasperated by the circular speaking Pom-pom tells the fish to “never mind”.

But the really exasperating thing is that the whirlpool is indeed endless. Their descent continues in a “sea that is no sea, of water that is not water.” Gradually the space between the fish narrows, the swirl becomes tighter, soon the fish are side by side when they announce their arrival. They are in Pisces.

“The beginning that starts an end and the end that’s a beginning!”

The fish send the children on one last spin to complete the spiral so that they plop out the other end and into a blue-green blob of a bubble. They are suspended inside as before and float “like a brilliant transparent star in the vast cosmic sea.”

There is a sense of awe and wonder as they peer out the bubble and off into the distance. Way out beyond the horizon, and out of the void, comes a tiny light that begins to grow as it approaches near them. The closer it gets the more fascinated the children become. When it is close enough the image can be made out more readily and to the children’s delight they see “the Ram with the golden horns, pulling the chariot of the Great Hunter” the heroes of the Aries epic. Also submerged in water and outside the bubble, the Ram, and Great Hunter’s movements are as if they are in slow motion and silent, as one might expect under water. But the children are in a state of bliss at the sight. They do all they can to gain the Ram and Great Hunter’s attention, but to no avail. The heroes from Aries cannot see or hear them no matter what they do to gain their attention.

Then another light appears. This time the Bull and Malamulapaga, from Taurus comes around into view. Again, the children perform all sorts of antics to gain their attention but as before, their efforts go unnoticed. The Bull and Malamulapaga fall in behind the Ram and the Great Hunter. The sequence continues like this to meet the readers’ expectations: the Twins from Gemini dance into the scene, then a new light appears as the Queen of Night and her numerous attendees from Cancer emerge plus the coral-colored crab. Next up from Leo is the Lion and the King of Day, closely followed by the maidens and Miss Lily Spotless from Virgo. None of these characters are to be out done by the Judge from Libra, accompanied by Frank and Felicity Harmony, perched as they are on a giant scale and of course perfectly balanced. Hayala and the giant Scorpion follow out of Scorpio. The next light hails from Sagittarius and is joined by flaming arrows shot from the bow of the Centaur, and the Archer soon comes into view with Heropodus Heronmimus mounted on the horse half of his nature. Patrizia writes how each set of characters, representing each sign of the zodiac, joins “the magical carousel” which becomes the title of her book. The “carousel” turns into a graceful procession, a roundabout, within a floating bubble.

The Sea-Goat from Capricorn leads Omanisol into the round, working extremely hard so as not to “disturb her deep state of concentration.”

Finally, the Sacred Servers appear, leading from behind in a sense, with the Speaker in tow in Aquarius. All the characters the children have grown to know on their journey through the zodiac are here, each taking their proper place and in the proper order. The children are beside themselves, effervescent with great anticipation, to be seen and to be heard by all the creatures they engaged with, but who they cannot seem to reach… the fish chime in once more:

“If you want to be united with all your friends it seems you’ll have to break the bubble!”

When the children ask how exactly they are to accomplish such a feat they are told to see Ayama, because she is the one who breaks all bubbles. She is the “bubble breaker.” Next, directions are provided for how to get to Ayama:

“Everywhere, that is everywhere is nowhere and no where is everywhere and here is there and there is here and in is out and out is in,” to which the fish ponders a second before pinpointing the location. Instantly the light changes and the magical carousel becomes faint. The children see as if peering out from underneath the shroud of a long flowing dress. They look closer and can see “the features of a person encompassing them, a part of the billowy, magical cloth.”

There is the sense that all these things are transpiring in a dream when the woman speaks.

“A dream, yes, this is a dream. There is the big dream and all the little ones. Those of nighttime sleep. You will awaken from all of these, the big one and the little ones. If you would have us all you must first, let us go.”

She continues.

“The past is gone, and the future should give no care,” when the Fishes swim to the spheres that the children are holding, the pluses that were left on the spheres are snapped off by the Fishes using their mouths. The children are “left with only the void circle.”

“It is the present that contains everything, all that is past and all that will be…”

Suddenly it dawns on Pom-pom that they are at the end and without any more keys, there is nowhere to go after Pisces.

Ayama asks:

“Is there an end? Only myths have an end so that they may begin again, and it is only the power of love that makes of every end a beginning.” From here the children are instructed to help remove the veils that separate them from the rest of the characters, and when they entreat Ayama on how exactly to do this, she responds “with the power of love.”

Everything comes to a stop inside the bubble. There is a complete standstill and utter silence as the children close their eyes and concentrate as deeply as they can, feeling the words that Ayama spoke, and not simply hearing them. The bubble pops and dissipates, Ayama disappears, and the two Fishes carry Val and Pom-pom on their backs to join the procession, taking their proper place at the end, which is just a new beginning. The circle is complete, in answer to the song which asks if the circle will be unbroken, “forming a united cosmic carousel.”

After many rounds the Ram heads off in an entirely new “direction and all the other creatures follow in a long radiant line that spirals through the vast cosmic sea, on and on into the void, finally disappearing in swirls and layers of purple mist.”

¹ Norelli-Bachelet, P. (2017). The Magical Carousel and Commentaries: A Zodiacal Odyssey (2017th ed.). Notion Press, Inc.