13.1.25 - Esoteric Zodiac: Introduction

Capricorn

I began the Esoteric Zodiac in 2021 because I wanted to incorporate all the elements which I had come to know and love about this starry menagerie. 

Like many young girls, I loved reading about the zodiac. It included many hours standing in MPH, a massive bookstore in Stamford Road in Singapore, which was next of my school, pouring over the handbooks about the star signs. I can still see the shelves which contained all the well thumber books about star signs and love signs. It was the 70s after all. 

I loved how they attempted to capture people's personalities and did the most superhuman of all things - attempt to tell the future. The zodiac provided the answers to two of the most fundamental human needs - the answered the question Who am I? and What will happen? To a teenage girl this was heady stuff.

I could now bifurcate into a million tangents about space and time, talk about the precession of the equinox, talk about coinkidinks, but I think I would like to think about the thing I love to think about the most of all, the awe inspiring nature of our cosmos.

Again, here we have enough material to diverge for another 20 years... its all too too much, but I'd like to begin where Western astrology and astronomy picks up - because we have so many many kinds of astronomy from our ancestors. It is this astronomy which has influenced this present Esoteric Zodiac which I did though - it is the astrology of what the Greeks called, the Mesopotamians. The people who lived in that place with endlessly clear skies and gave us cuneiform.

I know, what has astrology and astronomy have to do with the beginnings of writing? Everything.

When the Mesopotamians invented writing and they were able to use a plentiful material which was available everywhere and could be recycled - or kept - mud from the ground - they did what any of us discovering a superpower would do. They used it constantly.

Tablets found millennia later would demonstrate when unlocked by the Rosetta Stone, that the diligent traders, priests, bean counters, used record everything. Teenagers would write complaining about their outfits to their parents cos it didn't look nice enough and needed more money to buy clothes, quartermaster would record what weapons had been made and who had been paid, traders would complain about money which was owed them - and astrologers began recording the stars, suns and planetary movements.

They knew that there was a pattern. They had been observing it since before they had any time to observe anything. They begin to bring two things together  the movement of the cosmos and the patterns which took place on Earth. Now we have to realise that the art of fortune telling, scrying, seeing the future was not invented by astrologers. It is the humankind's gift or curse to recognise patterns and then draw conclusions. It is just who we are. 

When being able to see actual patterns took place, this was ramped up. The people who recorded weather patterns, grain production, wars, illness, etc, teamed up with the people who recorded what happened with the skies and viola, the logical conclusion was reached. We can predict what takes place when Venus is rising in Capricorn - cos we know what happened when that happened 45 years ago. (It's a thing I've just made up there, the astronomical event - although I'm sure that Venus does rise in Capricorn, but maybe not every 45 years.)

Rulers, which are a notoriously neurotic and quite useless lot, since they tended to be handed the job by birth or just killed everyone to get their way, loved this. They felt that it conferred some kind of predictablity to their lives. Also it helped that a greater power was telling them what to do, so they didn't have to take responsibility for their actions. They could always blame it on some higher being who only manifested its intentions and desires in the star dances and planetary movements. As well as the rising and falling of the rivers, anger when grain harvest was poor - essentially they just ascribed all these most human of emotions to natural phenomenon. Which is probably not a million miles from how children view their parents. 

The birth of astronomy and astrology was therefore something which happened together. It wasn't just a Mesopotamian idea either. The Chinese Daoists have taken it to the next level, including points of the compass, the five elements and feng shui. A brief walk around a house or building with Chinese influenced architecture will reveal planning which may be considered common sense - such as having running water doesn't only make the dragon happy, but it is nice to listen to and is quite relaxing, but also a bit irrational - do not use this toilet because it would flush away all the good luck. 

But back to astrology. It was this obsession with pattern, ability to record pattern and then the human need to have some kind of predictability in our lives which gave rise to astrology.

The zodiac itself is a series of constellations - a grouping of stars - in which the sun rises at certain times of the year. Everyone now knows that the precession of the equinox, this wobble which the Earth has on its axis every 2,000 ish years, has resulted in the sun no longer rising in the constellations which it rose in when the dates for the zodiac were given.

However, the power of the idea and the miracle of this solar year, was far too irresistible for human beings to dismiss. So we just kept it. A very quick search on the internet will tell you what the correct dates for the sun rising in what constellation are now. It is waaay off. Almost a month off actually. But my zodiac doesn't take that into account, cos it's not a personality zodiac. Also I think that while I strong identify with many Sagittarian traits, I also do not really use the zodiac in this manner.

Other associations with the zodiac

There are many other uses of the zodiac as well. A common Western medieval idea was that different signs of the zodiac ruled different parts of the body. It was like cure for humours, but involving the zodiac. Aries was the head, Taurus the neck, Gemini was the chest, etc. They also had planets and plants which were associated with each sign. Birth stones, very popular when it comes to last minute gifting ideas. Numerology. Colours. Elements. Anything that could be hung on the zodiac was hung on it. 

While drawing and developing the esoteric zodiac I incorporate many of these traits, but the two best things which I have included are the following: the Holy Nights meditations and the discovery of Virgo.

Virgo, the most glorious of constellations

It took me almost 4 years to do complete the 12 drawings. I discovered that I did no drawing at all in 2023. Four of the drawings was done in 2021 (Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces and Ares), 2 were done in 2022 (Taurus, Gemini and Cancer) and the rest were done in 2024 (Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius). Also, half of them were done in Ireland and the other in Singapore. I also ended up using different media for the both, but it doesn't matter, because in the end it is the same style and intention. 

However, when I began the last six drawings in Singapore, I had understood the importance of Virgo, which was not the case when I started in 2020, so there is some wisdom in having a longer process.)

I had been working with the New Moon Goddess Journeying Group which is a shamanic drumming group around the archetype of the goddess. In particular, I had been working with the Lady of the Beasts, who is the first recorded conception of what the Great Mother looked like. When I first thought of doing Virgo, I thought of making her Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of the heavens, whom I had worked with before in my shadow journey. With her being Sumerian, it was fitting. However, as I explored the size of Virgo, I discovered that Virgo was the largest constellation in the zodiac. And unusually, it was not an animal. The zodiac is called the zodiac because it is predominately animals. 

This returned me to the research I had been doing with our Neolithic ancestors and how they must have seen the skies at night and what was most important to them. Most important to them was the threshold - the entry to life as well as death - and that was perfectly embodied in the act of birth, which was carried out by the biology of the woman. This my own conjecture but WHY would Virgo we the largest constellation in the zodiac unless it was the most important? And if you saw the other animals which Virgo is surrounded by - the Crow, the Serpent and the Lion (Leo), not to mention all the other animals, you cannot think any longer that this was not the Lady of the Beasts herself enshrined in the night skies above us. Particularly since Leo comes before her - many goddess have associations with big cats, if not chariots drawn by big cats or enthroned with big cats, and it is followed by the scales - Libra - which justice is often depicted as - a woman. But also a redistributor of  plenty just after the harvest.

Despite this discovery, I am going to put Capricorn as the first zodiac, since my inspiration to do the calendar in the first place came from Rudolf Steiner's idea of the 13 Holy Nights, which also follows the zodiac. The idea is that you use the attributes associated with each month to inspire you through the year and therefore arrive at a crowning as it were, at the end of the calendar year and thereafter start all over again...

The 12 Holy Nights - the original Magical Mystery Tour

Rudolf Steiner, Austrian polymath, was someone who advocated the importance of spiritual science.  Spiritual science was the next step in our being and feeling. Steiner said that now that we had managed to master the sicences, as it were, we needed to spiritualise it because if we did not, we would end up destroying ourselves - and the planet. Not acknowledging there was a spiritual dimension to our existence was very dangerous. 

Using a mix of research and clairvoyance to develop the philosophy he called anthroposophy, he came up with many many areas in which anthroposopohy could be actioned. From art to architecture, medicine, farming, education, Christianity, dance, he man was prolific. He lived fast and died young - at the age of 54. But his legacy still lives on.

Amongst his many many indications for living a more spiritual life was the development of a series of meditations for the 12 Holy Nights. Steiner, like many medieval philosophers, believed in the sanctity of the nights between Christmas and Epiphany. These 12 nights (and days) were meant for us to reflect on the previous year and look forward to the coming year. It was a time of intense but very gentle direction setting. A time for both celebration and mystery. I'll write more about this during each meditation.

The 12 Holy Nights also helpfully were related to a time of the mysteries. Mysteries are precisely that - a mystery when used in a spiritual sense is a time for us to employ the highest yet most maligned of our intelligences - intuition. This calendar invites us to do this - use your intuition, attempt to cultivate and learn to trust it. Contemplate a mystery and see what that mystery says to you... what comes through?

Intuition is the future flowing towards us. In a way, it is what those ancient astronomers were trying to do - guessing the future. But with intuition, you are doing more than guessing - you are trying to understand what the future is saying to you through the agency of the zodiac and the being which has been immortalised in the stars. When we learn to use our intuition, we are touching the cosmos and accessing the divine. 

Each Holy Night is related to a constellation - this means that for each of the Holy Nights you have the opportunity to, should you wish to, plan your year ahead. Stick with the plan or don't stick with the plan, it doesn't really matter. What the act of planning is you trying to read into your own future - by developing intention and thereby creating a future - with, what it feels, some help from the stars.

This is now you in the chariot - you are now harnessing your Will and gently guiding yourself through the months. You could also, if you do not wish to use the 12 Holy Nights, to just reflect on the qualities of each month as a suggestion. The important thing to remember is that the entire cosmos, since the beginning of space and time has come down to this single moment here and now - to give you and those around you this wonderous place to be in. 

Use it as a piece of art, use it as a gentle reminder, use it as a deep meditation or a jumping off point to rediscover something about world history and mystery and science - it will support you in different ways.

That is why I decided to make this Esoteric Zodiac - because I needed to have something with brought all of my loves for this universe, as I knew it, together in the one place.