misc Essays - Astrological Signs, Astrology, Alchemy,

Aries, Uranus and Revolution It is the beginning of the new year in Aries and time to effect radical changes in our lives! In Pisces we cleared the decks of debri from the past year, now we are ready to invoke and draw down the forces of revolutionary Uranus, ruler of Aries. In esoteric astrology there are three rulers given for each sign, which correspond to the personality, soul and spirit, or monad. The monadic or ?hierarchical? ruler is rarely discussed in these newsletters as most of us are flat-out just invoking soul - and dealing with its effects upon the unredeemed personality! Yet everyone has the capacity to intelligently invoke forces that are available when the Sun or any other planets are in a given sign; the times today urgently demand that we do so - and raise our game. Uranus is the monadic ruler of Aries and is the essential fiery essence that impulses forth from this sign. Uranus is at once pure spirit and yet as ruler of the seventh ray of Ceremonial Magic, is able to anchor that spirit into matter. It is said that Uranus leads the soul to the final ?burning ground? where major testings for initiation are undergone. Uranus is the manifester who rules the Occult Way and is connected with the Hierophant of the Mysteries of Initiation. Uranus is known to most of us as the ruler of Aquarius and represents the humanitarian revolutionary who overturns that which has become too crystallised in the previous sign Capricorn. As soul ruler of Libra, Uranus leads us from the personal to the impersonal in our relationships and is related to the right use of money and sex. However, Uranus as ruler of Aries represents the ?raincloud of knowable things? as Patanjali has it, the very source of thoughtforms and the best and brightest ideas that exist; those ideas that we can wrestle from the ?mind of God?, that we can obtain through ?seeding? the raincloud. (Students will note another connection with Aquarius the Water-Bearer here.) Mercury?s job as soul ruler of Aries is the messenger or ?go-between? (?I come forth from the plane of mind and rule?) for this ongoing ?precipitation?. Mars as personality ruler is poised for action on the physical plane ready to implement the idea. This period of time upon Earth has never been so urgent. We are in the middle of an unique cycle where the utmost is being demanded of us all. There can be no losing the fiery tension needed to consolidate ongoing, unfolding individual and collective purpose. The world is upon a knife-edge, plagued by instability and fear, immanent epidemics, hunger, food water and soil degradation, climate change, increasing violence, money mismanagement and widespread apathy. These are all facets of the Earth?s shadow, thrown into sharp relief and pushed into critical mode by a steadily increasing soul light. This gives us much pause for reflection - the chaos of the times is not just the conflicting forces of the cusp of the ages and the many other ray and cyclic energies; it is the very birthing of the soul of humanity in a collective sense ? and it is a difficult birth! Aries is a sign of birth following the previous sign of death in Pisces; it is the soul or spirit coming into manifestation. Each year we have the opportunity during this major solar festival of Easter (where the Sun or Son is exalted), to rebirth ourselves anew with an ?updated model? that approximates more closely the blueprint of our individual soul purpose. Uranus is that force that can help us effect radical and revolutionary change through ?penetrating and precipitating the raincloud? ? by finding those divine archetypal patterns that can create your new model. Perhaps a general revolution is approaching where the creaking and groaning of the past ways will reach such a din that Uranus the Liberator will be invoked to break the impasse through radical change. It is an interesting word, ?radical?. The old name for a birth chart is the ?radical? chart, meaning the origin or root. Hence to effect radical change is to get back to the essence of who we truly are, the core of Being. Surviving within a greater culture