Seeing In Understanding ⁓ The Symbols & Sense of 2020 ⁓ Part Five
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| BLM Protest, 6 June 2020 at the US Capital (Wikipedia Commons). |
2020 and the 4.5 Point
“Nothing can arrest the descent of the New Heaven, but the resistance of the old can result in a massive destruction – which, however, is entirely avoidable. – Thea, “Sri Aurobindo’s Contribution to the Evolution of Consciousness”
‘The future of the Earth depends on a change of consciousness. The only hope for the future is in a change of man’s consciousness and the change is bound to come. But it is left to men to decide if they will collaborate for this change or if it will have to be enforced upon them by the power of crashing circumstances. So, wake up and collaborate!’ – The Mother, August 1964
[Link to Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4] In Part Four I began to introduce Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet’s (Thea’s) teachings about the 4.5 “Reversal” Point of the Gnostic Circle, while approaching 1 July 2020 ‒ the 4.5 Point of our current ennead (2016-2025). As the size of Part Four expanded, it became apparent that I needed to split it into Parts Four and Five. Thus, the writing of Parts Four and Five of this series straddled the 4.5 Point of 1 July 2020. Part Five includes more of Thea’s writings about the 4.5 Point in relation to the curve of our evolutionary journey and in relation to Sri Aurobindo’s rebirth, along with some commentary about the mismeasure of the Mother’s Temple and the Vedic Year in India, and a discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement in relation to the 4.5 Point and in the context of the larger evolutionary cycles and cosmological forces at play.
More on the Significance of the 4.5 Point
Our COVID-19 pandemic, is a collectively lived experience of this cyclical phenomenon and the pressures that come to bear on an individual or on a collective at this crucial time. The essence of this reversal point is particularly evident or on display in the massive protests following George Floyd’s murder by police on 25 May 2020 with the Sun positioned at 5° Gemini [2], which rapidly catalyzed the dismantling of structures, systems, and symbols, including but not limited to flags, murals, statues, and names of buildings, that symbolize (and in some cases celebrate) America’s history of enslaving people of color, white supremacy and ongoing active racism (overt or systemic), as well as race-based discrimination, profiling and crimes in America. The rapid dismantling of these long-standing symbols (beloved by many) perfectly illustrates the kind of baggage that must be shed at the 4.5 Point (or region) in the soul’s journey. It is not hard to see that the extraordinary pressures applied by the COVID-19 pandemic, helped to quicken the rapid dismantling of these symbols of the Old World. I will discuss the intensification of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 a bit further on. For now I just want to point out that this is a perfect example of the dissolution of the constructions or structures of our egoic mental consciousness which must dissolve in the course of a progressive evolution of consciousness, because such structures are based on ignorance and division rather than on the Divine Truth of the underlying ONENESS of the MANY.
In order to help readers understand COVID-19 as a force or catalyst of reversal at the 4.5 Point of 2020 and of our current ennead, it is necessary to share more of Thea’s writings regarding the significance of this reversal point, which lies directly opposite the 0/9 apex of the circle and is contained within the span of time from the 4 Point to the 5 Point of any 9-based cycle.
“The Asteroid Belt, the 4.5 Orbit [of our solar system], is the great reversal point, where the brakes are applied on the thrusting movement and the force issuing from the Centre is violently arrested and the curve begins in the sphere of subtle matter and energy, sweeping it back toward the centre once more, uniting it with the Origin from whence it sprang. Therefore the 4.5 Orbit is directly opposite the Pluto [0/9] Apex. – Thea, The Gnostic Circle, p. 151 [Text in brackets added.]“[Via this] formidable Curve of Consciousness … all things are compelled to return to the Origin though they proceed at the same time to expand…. [T]he 4.5 Orbit of the Asteroid Belt is where the farthest bend occurs in the descent from and ascent to the Transcendent. – Ibid., p. 221“The redemption of creation can begin in the third triad [of the Zodiac] by the awareness of unity or the reversal which initiates the return to the Origin for it must be remembered that 0° Libra is the 4.5 Orbit, where the evolution through man is reversed and made to turn back upon itself, so to speak. Man can become liberated from the Ignorance through union or yoga. – Ibid., p. 228
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“[The space between the 4 and the 5 Points in the Enneagram is] the Void. This is the escape….“Now, you can look at it in terms of the birth, the birth channel….“This whole quarter [the 3rd quarter of the Zodiac spanning Libra, Scorpio & Sagittarius] is very critical, this mental quarter. This is all the critical portion, starting from here (the 4.5). So that is why this is the reversal. …[I]f you are anchored … energy is released [at the 4.5 Point], this carries you up and up and up. Otherwise you get up here and you succumb to death, and you fall back. You get up here (the end of the third quarter) and the process finally ends in physical death, which is the eighth sign of the zodiac, Scorpio."… I mean, if the eighth is death, what happens in the ninth? Where is all this taking place? And of course, this is a key feature because if your consciousness is dissolved at this point, then you never make it up here. On the contrary, you have to accumulate energy, you have to gather energy, you have to know the process to be able to do this. Otherwise in effect you cannot make it up, you cannot experience that unity and the rest (of the signs/stages).“[I]t is that way out, or it is the dissolution of whatever impedes you from making this journey; and it is that release of energy which gives you the impulse from there on.… It is allowing you a possibility of dissolving a very critical mass that you need in order to be able to continue….“[I]t is a void. It is either filled by that centre, by that point that holds, or it becomes the void because your consciousness chooses the path of dissolution (you know the word nirvan means dissolution), – chooses either that or it is held together and the birth of the Point takes place. And here then this would be equivalent to the One, the Son, that male Child, you know, in mythology – where he is born, you see. And this would be his critical point. And this is really like the birth channel. These labour pains, you know, and out from there comes this. And if it doesn’t happen there, it doesn’t happen anywhere.…“Now all of this I think must be still very abstract for you. That is, in the beginning, because you are just now being flooded with a lot of knowledge that has been the result of lived experiences, this is coming at you just now as abstract knowledge. But it isn’t like that. I mean, this can be applied to your own life. And even if you go back, as you gather more knowledge about this, you go back and you look at your own lives and then you will be able to locate things happening according to this process. And it would be very interesting to look at yourselves in your 13th ½ year, 22nd ½, 31st ½ and so on, 40th ½, 49th ½, and just see what the condition of your life was like. You will often find this sense of shattering, of dissolution going on, a process of disintegration, you know.…“[W]hat you are getting rid of is a lot of useless baggage that does not allow you then the rise.…“[There is] a conscious process where these things are shed, and the baggage and the weights – these are what I call encumbrances – the encumbrances which actually slow you down. And this is a very important element this speed of consciousness, because everything finally will revolve around this speed of consciousness. The 4.5 [Point] really attacks that, this getting rid of encumbrances. But if it is too much pressure, then we escape. Then we choose the beyond, the nirvanas, the heavens.” – “Study Circle with Thea in Rosendale, New York, 18 April, 1994”, The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 9.2, June 1994 [Text in brackets added.]
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“In [the sign of] Scorpio it is the core at stake. But this passage can only be understood in conjunction with the 4.5 Orbit. The shattering there is the strengthening of the core, or virtually to bring it into being. What is destroyed in the process, stripped, taken away, is what impedes that core from acting as the Stable Constant. At the same time the Light/fuel must be released. It must provide the fuel to reach the Summit of Whole Time….
“[O]ne has to let go of excess baggage at the 4.5, in order not to be encumbered in the rise; otherwise there is not enough fuel….
“In the ‘mental quarter’, Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius … ‘poisons’ are released.” – Thea, "The Strategy, the Battle and the Nature of the Victory – Part 3", The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 4.5, December 1989 [Bold emphasis added.]
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“[The 4.5 Point or Orbit is] the point of compression, of compactness of the Fulness which then, by compression (tapas) releases energy. Fulness is transmuted, alchemised to create compactness and then release.…
“The reversal at the 4.5 Orbit creates combustion. This is then channelled in a particular direction: into the cosmos rather than dissolved in the Beyond, as in death. The result is an increase, a widening, an extension of the limits of destiny. To be more specific, it is a certain hitherto unexplored or untapped layer of energy in the folds of one’s destiny which permits a deeper expression of an inherent potential. Under normal conditions one may never tap this potential.
“When there is a void central to one’s consciousness-being, there is a seepage of energy. One cannot concentrate enough power to bring about this increase....
“On the other hand, when the Void has been filled as in this case by the consolidation of the tri-part, properly poised nucleus, this seepage is arrested. The released fuel is then utilised in a new way: for increase, for extending the boundaries of one’s destiny proportionate to the compact essence of the Seed. – Thea, “Vedic Symbol of the Universe – Part 3.4”, The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 10.1, April 1995
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“We may expect therefore that passage over this Point in a person’s life has the potential of engendering similar ‘toxic wastes’ like the fission splitting of particles engenders. And this reflection carries us to the heart of the matter. The 4.5 Orbit does not indicate INCREASE. Rather, its purpose in the wheel is to produce a collapse or breakdown, a caving in, a shattering. However, this action in a new cosmos, perfectly aligned and balanced on the integral, fourfold foundation of Truth, which is the creation the Gnostic Circle indicates, is restricted to the periphery of the system and specifically those elements which might obstruct the experience proper to the 0/9 Point: acceleration of consciousness-being. Thus, in a new creation, the 4.5 Orbit holds the key to the shift from destruction to dissolution. I shall go deeply into this matter because it provides the secrets of the new world, or this emerging cosmos in which the supramental Sun is central, the inexhaustible fount of pure truth-conscious power and light.
“The problem with the old creation was simply its incompleteness. In the lived experience of the race, both physically and spiritually, Whole Time was never known. The conscious experience never reached the 0/9. It was halted at the 6 and the sign Scorpio, the sign of Death. This was the measure of our solar system and it was therefore the measure of the boundaries of the individualised consciousness-being in evolution on this planet, or the blueprint of the present human species. Nothing further could be expected given the limitations of the species’ matrix….
“The area in the Gnostic Circle which described the old creation’s spiritual attainments and goals was the 0º Libra Point, or the 4.5 Orbit. It was the Void with its accompanying Nothingness – a dissolving of the individualised consciousness in the static Peace of the Beyond, a dissolution reminiscent of the shattered particles in the Asteroid Belt, in those airy Libran heights. An undoing of the Self or in the Self was the key and the way. In other words, the 4.5 Orbit was the escape, the elegant exit, the ‘slit’ through which one could pass and experience a disconnection from the temporal and spatial boundaries of our world….
“We are now in the 9th Manifestation, an era which began in 234BC and extends for 6480 years thereafter. [Bold emphasis above and paragraph break added below, as is the image I constructed below illustrating the 9th Manifestation within the 12 Manifestations of the Maha Yuga cycle (and our current position within this cycle) as discussed and portrayed by Thea in The Gnostic Circle. Each of the 12 Manifestations spans 6,480 years or 3 Astrological Ages. The first two images portray our current position at approximately 10° Sagittarius in the Maha Yuga/12 Manifestation cycle. The third image below portrays the location of the beginning of our current Precessional Cycle (the beginning of the Age of Pisces in 234 BC) as 0° Sagittarius, in Thea’s “Greater Circle” of 144 Astrological Ages. The beginning of the Age of Aquarius (1926) is equivalent to 2.5° Sagittarius in this cycle.]
“As in the human gestation, the 9 in this cosmic/planetary sense also indicates a completed process or gestation. Hence it is only in this [9th] Manifestation that we may come to know and to live the COMPLETE wheel. Thus, the position in the Gnostic Circle which describes the greater boundary or goal for the new creation living in Whole Time is the 0 [degree of] Capricorn Point. It is with the addition of the final quarter of the circle, as a lived experience, that the void is filled.
“Another description of the 4.5 action is to become relieved of ‘excess baggage’ during its time period. This is an accumulation which the individual experiences because in the present imperfect alignment of the species, one does not live in Simultaneous Time, as I have called it. Therefore a residue is accumulated as one lives the time experience on Earth and this creates inertia which impedes acceleration. At the 4.5 passage in an ideal condition, a mechanism is set in motion to dissolve these residues.” – Thea, “The Function of the 4.5 Orbit”, from “Fission and Fusion Symbols of the Old World and the New”, The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 4.2, June 1989 [Bold emphasis and text in brackets added.]
As briefly presented in Part Four, Thea specifically connected the 4.5 Point of our cyclical journey in Time and Space to Sri Aurobindo’s victory of bringing down and embodying the Transcendent via his rebirth in 1963. She equated this victory with “the birth that fills the void” of the 4.5 Point in the course of our evolutionary journey.
“[T]he point of Sri Aurobindo’s incarnation is that vision from above, the transcendence, as well as that immanence. It is HIS IMMANENCE as the Fourth, as the Point, as the Seed, that puts the seal on the Descent and allows for the creation of a new Cosmos. And this is what is conveyed in the Gnostic Circle. Sri Aurobindo’s position in that Circle is the 9. That point on the Sacred Triangle describes his work in that incarnation – the Transcendent. But as the Fourth it is the opposite to that 9 Point: it is the 4.5…the ‘Masked Transcendent’….
“That is the Immanent, that is the ‘gold’ hidden in matter, the Hiranyaretas or the Golden Seed. That is what permits a cosmos to be formed, an ordering to be undertaken. It is the infinitesimal point in the core [in the middle] of the Sun that holds a cosmos together. The 4.5 Orbit is therefore the redemption of the Buddhist and Mayavadist ‘void’. This is what Sri Aurobindo meant when he stated that ‘Kalki would come to correct the error of the Buddha’. At the same time, he referred to the experience of Nirvana as the entry into ‘the higher hemisphere’ from the lower and the beginning of the work, not the culmination. – Thea, “Letters From Skambha ‘The Infinite and the Detail’”, The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 4.1, April 1989 [Bold emphasis and text in brackets added.]
In The New Way, Vols. 1&2, Thea discussed an occult symbol, drawn by the Mother in 1970, in relation to the 4.5 Point (or Orbit) of the Zodiac and the Gnostic Circle. In the original image, the central petal was gold in color (gray in the black and white image below) and the other eight petals were silver.
“The Mother specifically emphasised the petal of this symbol flower which corresponds precisely to the 4.5 Orbit. [3] Furthermore, by her artistic genius she has revealed to us that this Orbit, and all that it signifies, is directly connected to what would be the point of the Transcendent Father in our Circle of 9. It can be observed that the symbol is drawn in such a way as to convey the idea of a surge of power upward from the depths, or that the power locked in this Orbit is to be released by a special alchemy and joined to the summits. And to further emphasise the transforming nature of this power and its connection with the Truth-Consciousness, or the Supermind, she gave this particular petal the colour gold, while all the others are silver….
“If one studies the diagram, it is immediately evident that this drawing, with the 4.5 Orbit emphasised, calls to mind the Peacock, which is the vehicle of Skanda, the god associated with this orbit. One 'sees' the very form of the Peacock in this symbol, where the body of the bird occupies the gold petal, with the power contained therein, and the completely circular tail is imaged in the remaining portion of the circle. There is hardly a clearer method than this one given by the Mother ‒ in combination with these revelations about the 4.5 Orbit ‒ for revealing the profound significance in the selection of the Peacock as the vehicle for Skanda. Through this the initiate learns why the ancients chose the symbols they did and just what their occult energy signifies. There was nothing arbitrary in the selection; but to understand the meaning and its living relevance in our world today, especially in the destiny of India (the Peacock is the national bird), one must possess the Knowledge.” – Thea, The New Way, Vols. 1&2, p. 495-96 [Bold emphasis added.]
“The birth of the One is fundamental, not only to render the Yoga supramental but more especially for the victory he symbolises, that the debris of the cosmic planes has been successfully minimalised. Therefore in the new cosmology his contribution in the Gnostic Circle opposite the 0/9, is the 4.5 Orbit precisely where baggage is meant to be shed if the initiate can successfully scale the heights that lie ahead. Until the descent of the complete Solar Line, covering all the planes, that area, the pit of the circle, was the escape route because the old structure, individual and collective, could not withstand the pressure and contain the new energies of higher frequencies from the solar realm, hitherto closed to humanity – i.e. the hole in the old structure that had to be plugged, sealed up forever. Only then can the new creation establish firm roots here. Only then can the destiny of the Earth’s evolving species be realised in Time and thereby enjoy permanency. The danger lies in an imbalance – moving too fast or too slow. The Solar Line holds the safeguarding regulator of Time as ally.” – Thea, “Reflections on Sri Aurobindo’s Contribution to the Evolution of Consciousness on his 143rd birth anniversary, 15 August 2015”
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“[O]nce the midway mark [the 4.5 Orbit] is crossed, the higher hemisphere of the circle is entered on the basis of a new principle of fullness due to the birth of the One which has filled the zero-void.
“This was the first condition in the ancient Vedic realisation of Immortality.” – Thea, “Vedic Symbol of the Universe – Part 3.3”, The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 9.6, February 1995
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“With this Birth a new element has been released and a process of controlled disintegration has started, which we can identify because of the prominence of the 4.5 Orbit [in events].” – Thea, The New Way, Vols. 1 & 2, p. 496
According to Thea, Sri Aurobindo’s rebirth, and the “Great Reversal” of 1984, solidified this new principle or birth of the One in our evolution, and now it is simply a question of how the old structures will be dismantled. In her writings, she discussed various instances of “controlled disintegration” in our world as being “connected to the action of the Fourth” (Ibid.), as well as being connected to the 4.5 Point.
Thea’s supramental cosmology essentially provides a yogic road map for individuals who aspire to establish this “One”, solid core, point or center which “fills the void”, in their own consciousness. As I understand it, this “void” in our consciousness or being, is essentially the foundation of our lived experience (via our egoic-mental lens) of being ‘undivine”, and of being separate or polarized from the Divine. We do not experience ourselves or anything in creation or in the matrix of Time and Space as THAT Divine Self, as that perfection. This Self-Ignorance – an ignorance of the Divine Oneness of ourselves and of all that is manifest and unmanifest – is precisely what is to be REVERSED in the real course of yoga/yajna (individual and collective), which does not culminate in the abandonment, transcendence or escape of the material world, but in the realization or birth of the Divine in one’s own being, in one’s own consciousness and in the world. This reversal process necessarily bears forward an entirely new lived-experience of Divinity on Earth, which Sri Aurobindo referred to as the “Life Divine”. In St. John's Revelation, this "Life Divine" is equivalent to the establishment of a "new heaven and a new earth" via the descent of the Holy City, which is itself a symbol of the Zodiac. In the Vedas, this is equivalent to the descent of the Swar or solar-realm of Truth-Consciousness on Earth. The various cycles of our lives can serve to progressively solidify the experience of the Void (the experience of division, chaos, randomness, suffering, and the “sin” of existing in the material world), or to progressively birth forward the Divine Self from within one’s own being. Thea referred to this birth, which is accomplished via great labor and pressure (whether it be on an individual or collective level), not only as “the birth that fills the Void”, but also as the formation of a “centre that holds”.
The 45-Year Anniversary of Cementing the Mismeasure of the Mother’s Temple
The fact that Thea’s yoga in India spanned specifically 45 years (Sept 1971-October 2016), stands as a symbol of her work or yoga of filling the 4.5 Void, which although she accomplished in her own consciousness, remains to be accomplished on a larger scale in India and in the world.
Now, it must be noted, the 4.5 Point (1 July 2020) of our current ennead falls specifically 45 years after the 4.5 Point of 1975, when the wrong diameter of the Mother’s Temple was fatefully cemented in Auroville. Despite Thea’s intensive efforts to expose this distortion and rejection of the Mother’s original vision of the Matrimandir, and to simultaneously uplift the supramental gnosis contained therein, the majority of students of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother continue to celebrate the distorted Matrimandir in Auroville as if it were a symbol of the Mother’s supramental light and gnosis, when it is actually a symbol of the rejection of her light and gnosis. Thea aptly referred to the “Matrimandir” built in Auroville as “the Shadow Temple”, signifying that it stands as a shadow of the real Matrimandir as envisioned by the Mother in the first weeks of 1970. Perhaps now that we have reached this important 45-year anniversary of the rejection of the Mother’s gnosis, there will be some significant reversal on this front, going forward.
While writing this segment, Paolo Tommasi—one of the two architects responsible for the distortion of the Mother’s Temple—passed away on 16 July 2020, not only 45 years and a couple weeks after the cementing of the wrong diameter of the Matrimandir, but also almost directly opposite 17 January (in the year), which Thea discussed as the day in 1970 that the Mother essentially stopped trying to preserve the integrity of her own temple vision:
“[Satprem’s, Roger Anger’s, Paolo Tommasi’s] obstinacy was total [and] the Mother, given her age (92) and frailty and inability to oversee the construction herself, could not pretend to emerge victorious from this 18-day Kurukshetra battle, which closed on that most significant date, 17 January. Thus she concluded with these words ‘…But one is not going to say it. To begin, they would not believe me.’“What now stands in Auroville is not merely a ‘mixture’. It is the representation of what the Mother did not care to elaborate upon then: the contours in every detail of the Titan’s Consciousness, the shadow of the Gnostic Light, the perversion of Sri Aurobindo’s truth and the objective of his mission. Lamentably, what was recorded during those fateful 18 days was the description of the binary creation with all its flaws and ‘goodwill’. Indeed, the Mother’s ‘helpers’ displayed one of the principal characteristics of the Titanic Consciousness: self-important ego of the instrument. None heard her because they were too full of themselves.” – Thea, “Culture and Cosmos – 3, Part 3.3: The Titanic or Vedic Superman: India’s Choice for the Millennium”, The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 8.6, February 1994 [Paolo Tommasi is referred to as PT in this article. Bold emphasis added.]
It must be noted that 16 July 2020 coincides with the Sidereal mismeasure of the entrance into the Cardinal Point of 0° Cancer, 26 days after the June Solstice, which signifies one imaginary (i.e. unreal) pillar of the distorted cardinal point axis of the Vedic Year/Zodiac as celebrated in India. Thea recognized that the mismeasure of the 12-month Vedic Year and the mismeasure of the 12-pillared Mother’s Temple were mirror-like or parallel distortions of Vedic Gnosis. She saw both as a result of the error of the mental consciousness that posited (in the Age of the Buddha, in the last Age of Aries) the goal of Transcendence BEYOND the material Matrix/Mother, which is patently a rejection of the Divine Mother and an ill-fated severing of her un-severable oneness with the Transcendent Divine. With respect to the measure of the 12-month Zodiac – which was celebrated in the Vedas as the Mother of Light (Aditi) – this rejection resulted in the adoption of the practice of looking BEYOND the Earth (into the distant stars) to establish the measure of the Zodiac/Sacred Year. This zodiacal error began circa the 11th century CE according to Thea.
Regardless, the four firm pillars or cardinal points of the matrix-womb of the Zodiac are ONLY found via the Earth’s own geometry and her relationship to the Sun. The four cardinal points of the Zodiac quite simply do not exist in the man-configured constellations. This measure is simply and elegantly established by Mother Earth herself – by her orbit around the Sun, by the tilt of her own axis and by her equinoxes and solstices as shown below – NOT by a committee of astronomers or astrologers who argue over and endeavor to agree on a point or points along the ecliptic plane, far-far-removed from the Earth’s actual sacred yajna or cycle of life.
Thus the Sidereal Zodiac stands as one among many ways mankind (and mostly MEN) has stamped its own ignorance upon the Divine Mother/Feminine, with no concept of the epic hubris, or epic consequences of such a dismissal of Her Truth, which is indivisible from the Divine Father/Masculine Principle upholding creation. Thus it can hopefully be seen that the mismeasure of the Mother’s Temple and the mismeasure of the Zodiac (Vedic Year) in India stand as a crystallization of the accumulated falsehood or baggage that India must shed in order to rise to the heights of her true dharma.
Regardless, the four firm pillars or cardinal points of the matrix-womb of the Zodiac are ONLY found via the Earth’s own geometry and her relationship to the Sun. The four cardinal points of the Zodiac quite simply do not exist in the man-configured constellations. This measure is simply and elegantly established by Mother Earth herself – by her orbit around the Sun, by the tilt of her own axis and by her equinoxes and solstices as shown below – NOT by a committee of astronomers or astrologers who argue over and endeavor to agree on a point or points along the ecliptic plane, far-far-removed from the Earth’s actual sacred yajna or cycle of life.
As written in Part Four, Thea’s “Great Reversal” experience began on 17 April 1983 and culminated 9 months later on 17 January 1984, conjunct the distorted cardinal point axis of the Vedic Year or Yajna. For more about this distorted (and ill-fated) axis, which extends to 17 October as well, see “The Third World War – The New Seeing, the New Power”, The Vishaal Newsletter, Vol. 6.1, April 1991. As observed by Thea and Robert E. Wilkinson, this axis shows up in certain world events and calamities, including the 17 January 1991 start of the Gulf War, the 17 October 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake in California, and the 19 October financial crisis of 1987 (“Black Monday”). This year the 16-19 July area of this axis was accompanied by a second wave of flooding of the Yangtze river in China, thanks to a particularly disastrous monsoon season conjunct the 4.5 Orbit of our 2016-2025 ennead. [4] The images below portray the correct cardinal point axis of the Vedic Year/Zodiac in black, and the Sidereal (Post-Vedic) mismeasure of the Zodiac is shown in gray. The off-center axis below-right mirrors the one to the left, but specifically highlights the 17th days of January, April, July and October, which represent the misalignment and distortion of the Mother's Temple, set in motion from 17 January 1970.
The entrances into the signs of the Sidereal Zodiac vary (more than shown below) depending on whose system of Sidereal measure one uses. [5] This distorted axis will continue to move away from the cardinal point axis of the Earth’s Solar or Tropical Year (i.e. become even more distorted) at a rate of approximately 1° every 72 years.
The entrances into the signs of the Sidereal Zodiac vary (more than shown below) depending on whose system of Sidereal measure one uses. [5] This distorted axis will continue to move away from the cardinal point axis of the Earth’s Solar or Tropical Year (i.e. become even more distorted) at a rate of approximately 1° every 72 years.
It is worth noting that China’s Banqiao Dam failed 45 years ago, in early August of 1975, simultaneously one month after the 4.5 Point of the 1971-1980 ennead, and one month after the cementing of the wrong diameter of the Matrimandir. According to some estimates, this disaster killed approximately 240,000 people. The 2020 monsoon floods in China and the fear regarding the integrity of the monumental Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze river at the 4.5 Point of our current ennead, are cyclically related, in Time and Space, to the Banqiao disaster 45 years ago. The dam, whose name is reminiscent of the three mothers, rivers, dames, or goddesses of the Vedic Yajna, has survived three waves of flooding of the Yangtze throughout July of 2020, and there may be a fourth wave in August.
Black Lives Matter – Looking at the Larger Context
The birth of the United States of America on 4 July 1776 (Independence Day) gives us some clues about its role on the planet. The much celebrated “Fourth of July” sits conjunct the 4.5 Point of the Gregorian Year, [7] and Americans celebrate this reversal point every single year with shattering explosions (fireworks) in the night sky. This day signifies the American colonist’s decision to completely sever themselves from British rule, which subsequently demanded massive commitment and sacrifice to actually achieve. The United States was founded upon ideals that were a radical shift and shedding of structures of the “old world”. The Declaration of Independence was simultaneously a declaration that “all men are created equal”, and that all men equally have fundamental rights, including “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, as well as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and the right to equal justice. These LIBERAL ideals mirror the ideals of LIBRA, the seventh sign of the Zodiac which begins at the 4.5 Point of the Gnostic Circle. Clearly, these Liberal/Libran founding ideals of the United States of justice, fairness, equality, harmony were a radical reversal of the confining structures of the past, but at the same time it is clear that these ideals were planted as an Aquarian seed in the soil of the “New World” – a potent seed nowhere near full manifestation or realization upon the Declaration of Independence, or now even in our Age of Aquarius – the third and last air sign of the Zodiac in which the mental ideals of the second air sign Libra become fulfilled or realized. [8]
The American colonists’ decision to split apart from England was accompanied by the herculean task of creating a functioning, unified and cohesive nation out of a nebulous mass of diversity. This divine mission is reflected in the central motto of the Great Seal of the United States, E Pluribus Unum, meaning “Out of Many, One” (established in 1776):
Left: The original 1776 design for the Great Seal by Pierre Eugene du Simitiere; Right: Official Seal, adopted in 1782.
This motto is recognized as being “similar to a Latin translation of a variation of Heraclitus's tenth fragment, ‘The one is made up of all things, and all things issue from the one’” (Wikipedia). This ideal can be traced back to the Vedic Gnosis of the Divine One that encompasses and informs the Many.
“Dayananda [Saraswati] has given the clue to the linguistic secret of the Rishis and reemphasised one central idea of the Vedic religion, the idea of the One Being with the Devas expressing in numerous names and forms the many-sidedness of His unity.” – Sri Aurobindo, The Secret of the Veda, CWSA, Vol. 15, p. 33
“Hard to seize by the mind in this world is the name of the immortal [One] because he puts on features and becomes divergent forms…." – Rig Veda 10.12.6, tr. Sri Aurobindo, Hymns to the Mystic Fire, CWSA, Vol. 16, p. 405 [Bold emphasis added.]
This seed of Truth was planted in America and, as it has grown, Americans have had to increasingly face the glaring hypocrisy of its old-world habits of treating certain men and women as slaves and as property, or as inferior and unfree and not deserving of equal rights under the law. The Civil War and various civil rights movements, including women’s rights movements, have slowly expanded the umbrella of “all men are created equal” towards including all races, genders, gender identifications, sexual preferences, etc.; but it remains obvious that America still has a long way to go in terms of fully realizing its own founding ideals of equality and all-inclusive Oneness. The founding fathers thankfully could not bring themselves (were not allowed by the higher forces at play) to voice any exclusions or exceptions to the statement “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence, regardless of all who they de facto excluded at the time; and America continues its long journey and collective labor or yoga of living up to, or into the Truth-Consciousness of those words (along with E Pluribus Unum). These founding (and as-of-yet not fully realized) high ideals are echoed in the American “Pledge of Allegiance”: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." [9]
The 14th Amendment was subsequently ratified in 1868, two years into the second quarter (4 July 1866 – 4 July 1954) of this 360-year cycle, followed in 1869 and 1870 with the passing and ratification of the 15th Amendment which “prohibits the federal government and each state from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude" (Wikipedia). The last year of this 90-year span included Rosa Parks’s refusal to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery Alabama in December of 1955, sparking 13 months of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and with it the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. as a leader of America’s civil rights movement.
The civil rights movement intensified from 1956 onward. The 30-year span between 1956 and 1986 encompassed the 30 degrees of the sign of Libra, and the 30-year span of 1986-2016 encompassed the sign of Scorpio. As of 4 July 2016 – approximately three months before Thea’s passing – America was 240 years (240°) into this cycle, equivalent to 0° Sagittarius. Through the first half of 2020, America was moving through the last half of 3° Sagittarius; and as of 4 July 2020, America was 244 years (243 +1 year) into this cycle, equivalent to 4° Sagittarius or four degrees into the 9th sign of Sagittarius. 0° Sagittarius – simultaneously the 6 Point and the seat of Saturn in the Gnostic Circle – is the point in the evolutionary journey of the Zodiac that entails a speedy surge forward beyond one’s limitations or some version of death or collapse due to the incapacity to move beyond the Ignorance or Falsehood which imprisons the soul and prevents the vision and lived experience of wholeness and unity.
Readers may recall from several images above, that our current position in both the 77,760-year cycle of the 12 Manifestations and the 311,040-year Greater Circle of 144 Astrological Ages, according to Thea, is precisely within the sign of Sagittarius – approximately 10° Sagittarius in the 77,760 year cycle, and approximately 2.5° Sagittarius in the 311,040 year cycle. So America’s current position in the early degrees of Sagittarius, within its own 360-year cycle, can be seen as a microcosm and a symbol of where our modern existence lies within these larger cycles, demonstrating the very real dangers of moving into Sagittarius with much residual, old-world baggage and falsehood left to be shed. Some readers will also recall that 3° Sagittarius (243° of the 360° circle) is the natal Sun position of “the Fourth” as well as the position of Thea’s North Lunar Node. [12]
This critical area of the Zodiac has been underscored in 2019-2020, via the fact that Wuhan, China – the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic – sits at 5° Sagittarius Longitude and 0° Aquarius latitude. Now, as discussed a bit above, this area of China and farther up and down the Yangtze river basin are suffering from record monsoon flooding. On July 7th the Hangzhou Dam at 0° Sagittarius longitude and 0° Aquarius latitude was forced to open all 9 of its flood gates, flooding 12 villages. The Three Gorges Dam corresponds to 9° Sagittarius longitude and 3° Aquarius latitude. The Banqiao Dam, mentioned above, corresponds to 6° Sagittarius longitude and 3° Aquarius latitude. I have more to say about the geo-cosmological position and the zodiacal and Vedic symbolism of this flooding, but will save it for Part Seven.
With the above cosmological factors in mind, we can better appreciate (better see and understand) the mass uproar against George Floyd’s murder and the swift dismantling of many symbols of slavery and systematic racism, the effects of which are being felt globally, not just in America. A certain limit was breached in the collective consciousness, like waters breaching the limits of a dam, unleashing mass protests and the demand for swift and broad action.
Race-based violence and inequity, is of course a global problem. It is a global sickness or pandemic in a real sense, based on the consciousness of division, which further extends to violence and injustice against all types of humans, as well as violence against animals, the environment and the Earth we all live on. The essence of this destructive consciousness (the human consciousness as it is) is a lack or VOID of a real center, which has no other outcome other than division, death, and collapse. It is the basis of our mortality, as opposed to the consciousness of immortality and Oneness sung of by the Vedic Rishis.
As Thea wrote, our modern civilization is founded upon this Void in our consciousness, represented by the 4.5 Point in the evolutionary journey (yajna) of the Gnostic Circle/Zodiac. As the consciousness of Oneness and Unity is born forward out of this evolutionary womb of Time and Space, all that which is founded upon the Void – upon mankind’s Ignorance of the divine core of our material existence – is now naturally collapsing in on itself. COVID-19 is essentially serving as a quickening agent, putting great pressures on the binary structures of the “Old World” consciousness – great pressures that are being applied to every corner of our globe, demanding a cohesive and unified response from a largely un-cohesive and un-unified mass of humans.
In the wake of U.S. congressman John Lewis’s recent (17 July 2020) passing, I heard that Lincoln was wearing a coat embroidered with the message “One Country, One Destiny” when he was assassinated at the close of the Civil War. He, an Aquarian, was essentially assassinated by regressive forces for his role in helping America live up to, or at least move closer towards realizing, the high ideals of unity, equality, freedom, etc., contained in America’s Declaration of Independence. Lincoln has been called “the Great Unifier”, because he was absolutely committed, above all else, to keeping America unified (North and South, East and West) amidst the forces, or rather the consciousness, that pressed to divide it.
It is impossible not to notice the stark contrast between Lincoln and the current 45th president of the United States who has earned the name in America as the “Divider-in-Chief” despite his vision of himself as a great unifier. This contrast is specifically being highlighted by “The Lincoln Project” – a group of Republicans attempting to get Trump out of office.
“Our namesake, Abraham Lincoln fought to preserve the Union. The Lincoln Project will do the same during the course of this [2020] campaign.” ‒ Reed Galen, co-founder of The Lincoln Project
It now remains to be seen if America will shed its 45th president as an “encumbrance” after moving through the 4.5 Point of our 2016-2025 ennead. If this does come to pass, it will be at least in part due to the pressures applied by COVID-19, which have made Trump’s divisive consciousness stand out as a great liability in the face of the real need for a cohesive and unified response to the pandemic, as well as a great obstruction in the face of the BLM clarion call for racial justice in America and in the world. From my point of view, Trump (born in the dualistic sign of Gemini ‒ the first air sign of the Zodiac) appears to be a something of a “lord” or perfect agent of the 4.5 Point (0° Libra) of the wheel, absolutely wired to maximally capitalize upon the Void (the as-yet unforged Truth), remorselessly applying the strategy of “divide and conquer” for his own personal and political gain.
One of the main slogans (and symbols) to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is “We’re all in this together”. It is notable that Joe Biden has adopted this COVID-19 slogan in his campaign to combat and oust the reigning “Divider in Chief”. Clearly humans have a long way to go before fully realizing and living the profound truth of this sentiment, but nonetheless, this slogan is symbolic of the higher consciousness, the unity consciousness of the soul that the COVID-19 pandemic is helping to birth forward in our world, serving as a collective initiation into a more global consciousness via shared global tribulation as discussed in Part One.
From the Supramental point of view, the birth or manifestation of Divine Truth and Unity in our world is ALL that is happening. In other words, through the MANY things happening, whether experienced as positive or negative, there is this ONE thing happening – the gestation, birth and manifestation of the Divine on Earth, and with it, the supramental realization of unity consciousness, far surpassing the ideas and ideals of the mind regarding this spiritual concept. Lincoln’s mantra of “One Country, One Destiny” was certainly a perfection for the specific role he was called to play in the USA and in the world in his lifetime. However, the higher truth or unity-consciousness that seeks to be known and realized now, 90-plus years into our Aquarian Age, is “One World, One Destiny”.
Before closing out Part Five of this series, I want to discuss the fact that several key points (years) in the 360-year cycle discussed above, correspond to key shifts in the Supramental Descent and Yoga in striking fashion.
The entrance into the 5th sign of Leo (0° Leo) corresponds to 1896 – Sri Aurobindo’s 24th year (three years after returning to India), wherein he wrote his poem “Urvasie” about a river goddess who, in Rig Veda 10.95.17 is described as “[she] who fills air and measures out the region” (tr. RTH Griffith). The entrance into the 6th sign of Virgo (0° Virgo) corresponds to 1926 – the year of Sri Aurobindo’s Siddhi Day and Immortality Day, and the beginning of the Age of Aquarius according to Thea. The 4.5 'Reversal" Point marking entrance into the 7th sign of Libra (0° Libra) corresponds to 1956 – the year the Mother announced that the Supramental Manifestation on Earth was “no more a promise but a living fact, a reality”. The entrance into the 8th sign of Scorpio corresponds to 1986 – the year Thea established her yoga center (Skambha/Aeon Centre of Cosmology) in Tamil Nadu, India. And remarkably, the entrance into the 9th sign of Sagittarius (0° Sagittarius) corresponds to 2016 – the year of Thea’s passing, as well as the year the vesica piscis bore itself forward as a long-lost and crucial geometric key of Vedic symbolism, depicted (veiled) in myriad ways in the Vedas, including as a river and as the river-nymph Urvasie “who fills air and measures out the region” of the Yajna/Zodiac. It is a true wonder of wonders that Sri Aurobindo’s poem about Urvasie falls 120° into this 360° cycle, followed 120° later by the realization that this Vedic symbol symbolizes the vesica piscis, which measures out 120° of the Zodiac.
***
In Part Six I will discuss the relationship between what unfolded in the first nine months of our current ennead (in the realm of the Supramental Yoga), and events now unfolding circa the 4.5 Point of this ennead.
Endnotes:
[1] Thea’s books The Gnostic Circle and The Magical Carousel discuss all of the stages of this evolutionary movement, which are to be seen as a whole.
[2] The date of 25 May (5° Gemini) is significant in that it is opposite (i.e. circa the 4.5 Pt of) the birth/natal Sun position of the Fourth – 3°54′ Sagittarius according to Thea in The New Way, Vols. 1&2, p. 419; and 3°49′ Sagittarius according to the astrological programs I have access to. Thea’s Mean North and South Lunar Nodes fall on this same axis of 3° Sagittarius/Gemini. Her True Nodal position is 5° Sagittarius/Gemini. The longitudinal position of Wuhan, the origin of the first COVID-19 outbreak, is 5° Sagittarius.
[3] Readers can see in the Mother’s occult symbol that the edges of the golden petal (in gray above) mark off the 4 Point and the 5 Point in the circle of 9 (with the 0/9 Point positioned at the apex). This image demonstrates that the critical influence of the 4.5 Point or Orbit of the Circle is spread out across the space between the 4 and 5 Points. In terms of an ennead, this span would cover an entire 4-Power Year (such as the entire year of 2020). In larger cycles of time, the gravity of this turning point naturally spans more years, amounting to 1/9th of whatever cycle in question. In the case of the first 36-year cycle of life, from age 0 to 36, this span of transformative pressures would encompass 4 years, from ages 16 to 20. In my life, this 4.5 Point region of the 36-year cycle included the downward spiral and suicide of my father, which absolutely served as a reversal and a turn (return) towards the divine and towards my yogic work.
[4] My father’s suicide, mentioned in the previous endnote, occurred on 19 July 1988, conjunct the July/Cancer area of this misaligned Sidereal (and misaligned Temple) axis.
[5] To get an idea of the many different measures of the Sidereal Zodiac and the ensuing chaos born of this man-made problem, see the video: “Circus of Ayanamsha in Astrology”. I entirely disagree with the author’s conclusion that faith dissolves the problem of the many proposed measures of the Sidereal Zodiac, and that one should simply continue to follow whatever sidereal measure or guru/astrologer they happen to believe in; but his presentation serves to give the viewer a real picture of the problem at hand. To say that astrology goes beyond mathematics and beyond the need for a consistent/fixed measure of the Zodiac, and that one has to have faith in (and thus be entirely dependent on) their psychic connection with their teacher/astrologer/guru is truly horrible advice. The whole point of the Vedic journey of the Zodiac (Yajna) is to grow and mature beyond blind faith in gurus and beyond blind belief in religious rituals and systems, into the direct lived experience of the Divine. Success in this Vedic journey entails becoming an embodiment or child of the Divine – an embodiment or child of the divine laws, the divine measure, and sacred geometry of the Divine Mother. To adopt the attitude that one simply has to have faith in one of many arbitrary systems of zodiacal measure, proposed (or rather imposed) by one of many gurus, is a perpetuation of the CIRCUS the author of the video discusses, not an ending of it, as he proposes.
[6] Excerpts from Rig Veda 2.35.2-9 (tr. RTH Griffith):
“The friendly Son of Waters [the Flood’s Child] by the greatness of Godhead hath produced all things existing. … On every side the bright Floods have encompassed the bright resplendent Offspring of the Waters. The never-sullen waters, youthful Maidens, carefully decking, wait on him the youthful. … To him three Dames are offering food to feed him, Goddesses to the God whom none may injure. Within the waters hath he pressed [stretched himself out Jamison & Brereton], as hollows, and drinks their milk who now are first made mothers. Here was the horse's birth…. The Waters’ Son hath risen, and clothed in lightning ascended up unto the curled cloud's bosom….”
The “three Dames” in this hymn are equivalent to three mother rivers, which I have discussed in my writings as the three vesicae piscium (measured out by the ONE radius of the circle/ocean) that perfectly divide the Vedic Year/Yajna into three. The Vedic Rishis referred to the multiple vesicae piscium of the Zodiac as channels that are dug out (like a gorge) by the hero-Bull/radius. I will discuss the geometric and zodiacal significance of the simultaneous reference to Agni as the Son of Waters and as “the horse” in Part Six.
[7] Thea’s birthday fell on 5 January (15° Capricorn), and she discussed 1-5 January (10°-15° Capricorn) and 1-5 July (9°-14° Cancer) respectively as the beginning and the 4.5 midpoint of the Gregorian Year. Thea saw the USA and India – both born independent from British rule in 3-power years, respectively in 1776 and 1947 – as two sides of the Earth’s Cancer-Capricorn “evolutionary axis” wherein the USA represents the material consciousness which has divorced itself from Spirit to a large degree, and India represents the spiritual consciousness which has divorced itself from the material world to a large degree. Our evolutionary crises/labor is all moving towards the realization that these seemingly binary opposites or poles of Spirit and Matter are, in truth, ONE. Thea discussed the water sign of Cancer as the Dark Womb of the Mother/Matrix wherein the Truth gestates in hiding, via certain coverings (including the veils of the Ego), and the earth sign Capricorn as the full realization of the Divine in Matter and thus as a great victory in our evolutionary journey which we haven’t lived into yet. In terms of geography and in terms of essence, Thea saw the United States and India embodying this Cancer-Capricorn axis. [See “Namaste Trump & Howdy Modi”].
In Time and Imperishability, Thea discussed the similarity between the form of India’s undivided body (Akhand Bharat) and the Capricorn hieroglyph. She superimposed the Capricorn and Cancer hieroglyphs onto the outlines of India and the United States.
The longitudinal position of the deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese forces that began in May, is 11° Capricorn, which is simultaneously conjunct the longitude of the source of the Ganga river’s descent through India, the longitude of Pondicherry, India, and conjunct the 1st of January in the Gregorian Year (the 7 Point of the Gnostic Circle).
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| Image Source, Time and Imperishability, p. 90 & front cover, pp. 85, 87, 132. |
The longitudinal position of the deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese forces that began in May, is 11° Capricorn, which is simultaneously conjunct the longitude of the source of the Ganga river’s descent through India, the longitude of Pondicherry, India, and conjunct the 1st of January in the Gregorian Year (the 7 Point of the Gnostic Circle).
[8] Quotes from The Gnostic Circle and The Magical Carousel:
“By the central Fixed sign Aquarius, an Air sign, we see that Libra is fulfilled in this triad [the fourth quadrant of the Zodiac] or that the Mental Principle has given birth to the higher principle inherent in itself, the supermind, which signifies the spiritualisation of the species.” – Thea, The Gnostic Circle, p. 229
“[T]he 4. 5 Orbit, the 0° Libra; that is the first entry into a sphere of higher consciousness, but it is not the total manifestation.” (Ibid. p. 249)
“Libra is the Power of Truth which begins to make itself felt”. (Ibid. p. 90)
“Libra is the first manifestation of the higher consciousness. It is the first sign of the upper half of the wheel; thus, the initial awakenings of the Origin come into the play, and the path which can lead to the unity of man becomes visible. …. by the influence of Libra humanity is awakened to a higher consciousness.” (Ibid. p. 95)
“In Aquarius... the Vast, the universal, the all-embracing [is found].... There is no question of opposites here, a prime feature of the second Air sign, Libra. Aquarius, the third and last Air sign, is the paradoxical unity of seeming irreconcilables. We are – it must be remembered – in the realm of unity [i.e. Aquarius].” – Thea, The Magical Carousel, Commentaries, p. 120.
[9] The American “Pledge of Allegiance” was originally written in 1892. The addition of “under God” was added in 1923.
[10] It is worth mentioning that President Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” went into effect on New Year’s Day, 1863, a year which compresses to the sacred numerical trinity of 963 when the 18 is reduced to its 9 power (1 + 8 = 9). Sri Aurobindo was born the subsequent 9 year of 1872, and was reborn 91 years later in 1963, according to Thea. Lincoln was an Aquarian, born on 12 February in the 9 year of 1809 with his natal Sun at 23° Aquarius, opposite Sri Aurobindo’s natal Sun. 9 years before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, Lincoln gave his famous Peoria Speech on 16 October 1854, at the age of 45 and 8 months, which included the text:
“If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that ‘all men are created equal’; and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.”
9 years and one month later, on 19 November 1863, at the age of 54 and 9 months + 10 days (i.e. at the 7 Point of his own yearly cycle, and just having moved into the sign of Taurus in his enneadic cycle) Lincoln gave the pivotal Gettysburg Address, which began:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
[11] I emphasized 15 April here because Lincoln’s assassination falls along the distorted cardinal point axes of the Vedic Year. It is worth noting that civil rights activist and congressman John Lewis, died on 17 April, conjunct this same axis and conjunct Lincoln’s assassination.
[12] Thea calculated the Mean position of her Lunar Nodes as 3°54′ Sagittarius/Gemini, as published in The New Way Vols. 1 &2. The True Node position of her Lunar Nodes is 5°17′ Sagittarius/Gemini. See also Endnote 3 above.
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