Dear Friend:

   When a planet is located in the upper part of the 12th house, it influence is confined entirely to that department of life, but when close to the Ascendant, it acquires dominion also over the physical body, for the Ascendant is the degree which held the Moon at conception and serves as an avenue of ingress for the life forces until the severance of the umbilical cord. The planets in aspect to that degree during the 9 months immediately preceding birth each had a share in forming the organic constitution of the child. This is particularly true of the planets which formed a conjunction with the Ascendant during the prenatal period. After birth, health is influenced by aspects to the Ascendant and conditions of the 6th house; but the organic constitution which was determined by the prenatal aspects mentioned above is almost unchangeable for these aspects are the ripe vintage of our past which must be drunk to the dregs no matter how we squirm, though proper care, particularly if applied in childhood, may considerably decrease suffering from that source.

   Neptune really signifies what we may call "the gods," commencing with the supernormal beings we know as Elder Brothers, and compassing the innumerable hosts of spiritual entities — good, bad, and indifferent, which influence our evolution. Its position and aspects denote our relation to them, if any; malefic aspects attract agencies of a nature inimical to our welfare, benefic configurations draw upon the good forces. Thus, if Neptune is placed in the 10th house, trine to the Ascendant, the person involved will have the opportunity to become a leader or prominent in a movement along mystical lines as denoted by the exalted position of Neptune. His body will be capable of receiving the finer vibrations and coming into touch with the spiritual world, as denoted by the trine of the Ascendant. On the other hand, when Neptune is placed in the 12th house, whose nature is passive and productive of suffering, it indicates that at some time, perhaps under a square from the Midheaven such as we are considering, the evil forces among whom are spirit-controls will be drawn to that person and endeavor to obtain possession of the body. The conjunction of Neptune with the Ascendant will make the body sensitive and usable for spiritual purposes as well as the trine. Given the opportunity afforded by the first aspect mentioned, the man may become a pupil of a Mystery School and a factor for great good in the uplift of mankind; placed under the affliction of the second aspect, he may become a helpless tool of spirit-controls, an irresponsible medium.

   But there is one factor which is never shown in the horoscope, and that is the will of the man. He is bound at some time in life to meet with the experiences denoted by his horoscope, and the opportunities there indicated will be placed before him by one in orderly succession, as the clock of destiny marks the appropriate time, but how he, the free and independent spirit, meets those fated experiences, no one can determine beforehand. The man in whose horoscope the first mentioned benefic configuration occurs may not be sufficiently awake to the great opportunity before him to catch it on the wing, it may have flown before he realizes that it was there. Yes, he may even never become aware of the fact. On the other hand, the person in whose life the square indicates the assault by spiritual forces mentioned, may develop his spiritual muscle by resisting the onslaught and become a victor instead of being vanquished. Forewarned is forearmed; if the parents of the boy whose horoscope we are considering understand the gravity of the situation and foster the spirit of independence in him from childhood up, they may lay up great treasure in heaven by saving him from the deplorable fate of mediumship.

  (You are welcome to e-mail your answers and/or comments to us. Please be sure to include the course name and Independent Study Module number in your e-mail to us. Or, you are also welcome to use the answer form below. You will find the answers to the questions below in the next Astrology Independent Study Module.)

1.  What do you think would have been the effect if Neptune had been in the 7th house? Squared by Progressed Midheaven?

   When a planet is located in the upper part of the 12th house its influence is confined mainly to that house and if the planet is very near to the 12th house cusp it will tend to exert some overlapping influence into the 12th house also. The 12th house alone indicates such things as opportunities for self-sacrifice, potential sources of self-undoing and secret sorrows, also those things which we keep hidden within ourselves. When a planet is in the 12th house but close to the ASC it acquires dominion over the physical body and personality.

   Architecture is, in essence, manifestive art as expression of man's consciousness of cosmic protectiveness.

   Whatever man builds, through his expressions in this art, is a symbol of his instinctive desire to enclose, enfold, and protect that which he cherishes. This art differs from the other three- dimensional arts — dance, sculpture, and drama — in that it fills and encloses space. There is a certain utility in the essential nature of this art which also differentiates it from the other arts. Buildings, to fulfill their reason-for-being, must be occupied by something or lived in by someone. Hence, of all the arts, architecture is the least abstract, the most useful, and it is the one that is most basic to the needs of humanity.

   An analogy — the blue of sky and the brown of earth are ceiling and floor of man's habitation on this planet, the vast house of our physical living provided as creative expression of God. Because all share this ceiling and floor, man as an individualization of consciousness and as a "spark of Divine Fire," must microcosmically reproduce this pattern as an expression of his God-hood. So, he builds "ceiling and floor" to enclose the heart of his creativities (home and work) and that of his reverence, the church. Since home and church symbolize the core of man 's awareness of relationship to humankind and to God, these "buildings" from time immemorial have stood as the two essentials of architectural endeavor.

   The God-hood of human kind is the permanent seed atom which endures throughout the cycle of incarnations. The first house that is built for it is within the maternal body prior to birth. The maternal body is the enclosure of protectiveness with nurture for the incarnating Ego. The etheric matrix is the "outer body" in which we live during incarnation and our physical flesh-body has the enclosures of skin, skeletal, and organic structure in which the seed atom is enshrined. The male parent functions in correspondence to his mate by providing the enclosure of home to protect his two "most beloveds" and the home is a specification of space in which the relationship-life of persons magnetized to each other by specific vibratory requirements is perpetuated. All of these "buildings" (the etheric matrix, the womb, the physical enveloping, and the home) are the "humanity" of that which is "architecture"in manifestive art. Man has never built for himself alone — he has always built, as God builds, as an expression of his octave of Cosmic Protectiveness. As water and, subsequently, air were the original "homes" in which we lived as physical involutions so the great "sea of electrical magnetism" is the "home" of our relationship consciousness and "home" is the individualized chemical expression of man's consciousness of focalized relationship on the generative octave of being. During incarnation, man abides, or can abide, in many houses but relationship with other humans is the "home-life" of his consciousness. We feel "at home" (and this is not just a figure of speech) with those we love, we feel "out of (our rightful) place" with those we dislike. With those we love we "build easily" the fulfillments of relationship — on whatever octave of experience or consciousness. To build beautifully is to express love. To "build unbeautifully" is to emphasize (pile up) the congestions in consciousness of desire-ignorance; the resultant buildings are "shrines to ugliness." Man expresses his "architectural best"when he builds (anything) as an expression of his heart's and mind's highest and best. The soaring spires of temples and cathedrals are designs which symbolize man's spiritual aspirations toward his "lost Eden" — toward which he returns on the upward spirals of evolutionary progress. These spires are variations of the basic design of the pyramid, which we will discuss in this discourse.

   That which is intimately external to us is the outer reflection of inner building. Consciousness — and nothing else — is the material we use to build anything, in whatever octave, cycle, or dimension. The result of material building is the effect from the way the man has imposed his mind, talents, and abilities on malleable substances; and mind, talent, and ability all are octaves of consciousness. He imposes his consciousness on the "stuffs of art" to embody his concepts of archetypes in manifestive artistry; he imposes his consciousness on the "stuffs of relationship" as his "embodiments of relationship-consciousness," to enfold, protect, and perpetuate that which is unregenerate or regenerate in human relationships. We can build "caves for jackals and dens for thieves" just as we can build "homes for the beloved and shrines for the adored." All of these, in their myriads of expressions, are building with the materials of consciousness.

   Since each human is an individualized consciousness, we are the builders of everything that is manifested in our lives. By incarnating, we serve to build a new identity for our parents as they were instrumental in building a vehicle for us. Each child contributes relationship-material and relationship-experience to the "building" of his parents as individuals and as a couple. He expresses his consciousness, they react; they express, he reacts in the years of his development and for as long as his relationship to his parents endures. The child was magnetized to his parents by law and he built the particular quality of parentage-consciousness by his exercises as father and as mother in past incarnations. In other words, his parents are a chemicalized expression of his consciousness of "parents;" they, in a sense, and in relationship to him, are something he himself has built. Each human being is, therefore, the architect of his own parentage. Concretely this is pictured in the horoscope by the vertical diameter of the cusps of the fourth and tenth houses. The "parentage" of the archetype, humanity, is the zodiacal diameter of Capricorn-Cancer focalized by the planetary architects, Moon and Saturn, the "form-builders" of our vibratory archetype. This diameter is, of course, complemented by that of Aries-Libra as the vertical diameter of a horoscope is complemented by the horizontal diameter of the Ascendant and seventh cusp. Further astrological illustration: we can think of the chart as the blue-print of an edifice, so architectural are the symbols.

   A circle with vertical and horizontal diameters; the symbols for the cardinal signs at the structure-points, Aries as Ascendant-sign. Connect the structure-points with straight lines forming a square. The four right angles are the "enclosures" of the angles made at the center by the diameters of the mid-points of the fixed houses (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius); the right angles of the fixed sign square are the enclosures of the central angle made by the vertical and horizontal diameters. The sides of the two squares are the same in length. The cardinal points bisect four semi-circles; the fixed points bisect four quadrants.

   The circle is, at one and the same time, the perfect idea "Humanity" in Divine Mind. the perfect manifestation of that idea in form, the perfect objectifications of all the potentials inherent in the Central Point; by the perfection of its beauty it is the archetypal symbol of the Golden Wedding Garment which will be worn by the archetype humanity at the dawn of liberation from this manifestation, or which is worn by each individual at the timing of his liberation. The Golden Wedding Garment is the perfected habitation of the seed atom — all humans have an etheric matrix, but not all humans wear a beautiful matrix; it is the perfect beautification and purity of this matrix that identifies the Golden Garment, the result of all of our building in incarnation.

   Previous reference has been made to the author's conviction that the circle which circumscribes the cardinal square and its "lines of force" (the Cardinal Cross), in combination with the Central Point, is a "bird's eye view" (looked down upon from above) of a pyramid. The archetype humanity involves from innocence — the state of Virgin Spirit — to the utmost of chemicalization by a spiralic process downward from the point in ever-widening (separative) circular windings. The essential perfect potential remains throughout but man, incarnated and new to this plane, sees only the chemicality of life and of his own nature. He does not know his unity with life and only dimly senses it in his feelings of instinctive togetherness with other humans with whom he is closely associated by ties of blood-relationship or clan-affiliation. For the most part he is aware of the differences between himself and his father, mother, and other people: stronger and weaker, older and younger, male and female, etc., but his similarities to other people, regardless of outer appearance, are not recognized until evolutionary processes have been in effect. To know relationship is to be aware of the "inner" of human life, and that awareness is the beginning of wisdom. The consciousness of involving humanity is not aware of the circular essential shape of the beam of light on which they are traveling; it is always circular but when it "strikes the screen of materiality " the undeveloped human consciousness sees only square — the sharp differentiations between people, not the unity by which all are affiliated in spirit.

   The two representations of the symmetrical square in our mandala symbolize the structure of the human family and the material from which that structure is built. The family is outwardly the male and female of human generative manifestation; inwardly it is the masculine and feminine of generic consciousness.The structure points of the fixed-sign square symbolizes the focalizations of the diameters of desire-love which is the food-substance of the total of our human relationship — life — the equipment we use to build each home of relationship-exchange. The cardinal structure- points are the four focalizations of human identity — mature and immature of male and of female — Father, Mother, Son, and Daughter; also the male and female as causer and reactor to the effects of causes. From this Cross of the Polarity of Identity, fed by the desire-love resources of the fixed sign diameters distributed by the unsymmetrical diameters of the wisdom octaves of the mutable cross, the upward spiral of evolution starts. As long as a human being must incarnate he participates in these three crosses; but to the degree that separative identity is transmuted into unity, desire into love, and ignorance into wisdom, will the squares get smaller and smaller, continually approaching resemblance to the circle which, in turn, is the perfect outpicturing of the smallest of all circles, the point. You can get a picture of this disappearance of the square by drawing a fairly large circle enclosing the cardinal square. Within the square draw a circle, within that circle another square, and so forth until the figures get so small you can't draw any smaller. Remember that "square" is an archetypal design; "cardinal square,""fixed square," and "mutable square" are three variations of one design; fixed and mutable are sub-archetypes of the cardinal as archetypal design of human identity and relationship. So, in drawing these smaller and smaller squares within smaller and smaller circles, you are really picturing, in essence, all three forms of the square on all evolving octaves. When you drew the first circle for this illustration (and the enclosed cardinal square) you pictured humanity ready to evolve; each successive smaller square and circle, in pairs, represents one higher octave-like the stories of a building that is pyramidal in shape. If you can draw or imagine a pyramid being cut by horizontal planes one above the other you will get the essence of how each spiralic level of the circle-and-cross is analogous to the floors of a building, each floor having many rooms in which different activities take place — or in which different expressions of Consciousness take place. In this drawing indicate "primitive" at the first level, and designate the different levels of the pyramid, cut by planes, as representing different periods in history in which men made noticeable evolutionary progress. On each level the cardinal cross of human relationship-exchange, the fixed cross of desire-love resource, and the mutable cross of wisdom-distillment are found in conjunction, or synchronization, with the eternal ideal that enfolds and interpenetrates them. With approach to the top point (the center point of the astrological wheel as we know it) love and wisdom become more and more fused, and the four identities lose their separative quality and merge more and more into the relationship ideal of fraternity, which is what our relationship to each other really is. We are all fraternal to each other because we are the "sons and daughters" of Father-Mother God; our "sonship" and "daughtership" is our bi-polar essential nature — "male and female" pertain to our nature only when we are incarnate, and in the upper octaves of being it applies only to our spiritual generative state, and the powers of bi-polarity are fused when the perfected awareness of the "one love" is attained. We are aware of "loves" while we are on the lower levels of the upward spiral — we identify the existence of love with the existence, in our lives and experiences, of other people. Actually, love, is one aspect of the circle and is omnipresent in perfect purity on all levels of being. As the top of the pyramid is approached the "separateness of loves" is transcended and the point at the top of the pyramid — the end of the upward spiral — is the perfect consciousness of the " one-ity " of love as Divine Attribute. As wisdom is distilled from experiences on the spiral, the congestions of fear and hatred are dissipated by the light of reason and understanding, which, in turn, are the illuminations of the mind by the power of love and the inspiration of beauty.

   Make a copy of a twelve-housed wheel, connect the cusp-points in sequence by straight lines creating twelve isosceles triangles. Each one of these triangles is half of an equilateral triangle, the arms of which are alternate house-cusps. There are two sets of these equilaterals: those of the fire and air trines and those of the earth and water trines. Think of the "Aries equilateral" as being: "masculine Aries and feminine Taurus" and so forth around the wheel. These equilaterals, three of each generic element, having polarity by division into two equal parts, are the real basic houses of the wheel as far as generic consciousness is concerned. Because each of the twelve mundane houses focalizes the principles of one of the zodiacal signs we recognize that they are specializations of the two-fold generic sections of each trine. Get this picture by drawing four wheels and "black in" (in each one) the three signs of an element and the succeeding sign. There is much food for thought in this representation of houses as generic divisions of experience.) The regular appearance of the twelve houses pictures a much more objective representation of cycle-experience during the years of incarnation. They are, in whatever form, rooms on a particular floor of your life-building. To the degree that the vibratory elements of your chart are congested will you be seen to be "living on a lower floor in your life-building."

   Think of your horoscope as a floor-plan blue- print of the evolutionary mansion (building) that you are now inhabiting. Your chart symbolically represents your potential for being a spiritual architect; the contents of your wheel represent the soul-materials you are using to build your pyramid — your Golden Garment — the composite of the best of your consciousness distilled from all previous levels of experience and realization. Become more aware than ever before of the beauty of architectural art — let yourself appreciate the aesthetic values of fine buildings and, philosophically, let yourself become more than ever aware of their significance to human experience.

   To dance is to signify, by rhythmic bodily movements, one's consciousness of participating in the world of Nature. To dance is to make the physical body an instrument for the manifestation of archetypes as expressions of emotional states and of spiritual concepts. These emotional states are focused points of spiritual awareness of such intensity that they "must out" through the instrumentality of the physical body.

   As man applied himself to manipulate material substances to express, by building, his octave of "enclosing protectiveness" to house that which he loved and worshiped, so did he dance to express the inner life of that which his physical body enclosed — his consciousness and heart with their dreams, fears, loves, challenges, aspirations, and understandings. "Living" is not just moving through time from place to place in space. It is moving through evolution from point to point in consciousness. To dance means to identify one's self with cosmic movement, which is the alchemical action of life, by rhythmic sequences of archetypal bodily postures. To dance does not mean, as some think, to "outpicture music." Man moved his physical body on this plane long before he ever invented a musical instrument; music and costume are vibratory accompaniments which serve to intensify and clarify the dance-artist's expressions which are, by their very nature, extremely personal. However, dance essentially expresses through its own merits — it does not need other adjuncts to fulfill its basic purpose. Dance is everywhere seen in the natural world; let us personalize a little to study a few examples:

   The natural dance of life-expressions is the sequence of unfoldments that follows upon birth and which is concluded at transition. Every manifested factor in the natural world has its timing for un-foldment of potentials and when that unfolding is made without unnatural interference, the plant or animal alchemicalizes its physical form through all the stages of experience according to the rhythm of its basic pattern. So with human beings; we have a "timing pattern" for the unfoldment of our potentials in the stages of growth, but individual qualifications vary the timing for fulfilling experience-patterns. However, human or sub-human, we all dance through these unfoldment-phases of natural growth.

   If we think of "dance" as the movements of a physical organism we see its evidence everywhere in the world of Nature. The branches of a tree move to and fro, responding to the wind-forces which play through them — we say that the tree is making beautiful movements with its arms. The waves of the ocean give the impression of dancing by their endlessly busy running up the beach and withdrawing in pulsating sequences of movement, each wave resembles a line of dancers rushing across a stage and back again. The Moon performs a long "bourree" (serene and legato) across the sky at night. The sportive dolphin leaps from the water in beautiful arcs; who is to say that he doesn't feel the same "joie-de-vivre" that boys and girls feel who "dance" by skipping down the street. Skipping and leaping are archetypal movements which symbolize the challenge to gravity and, as movement-symbols, they represent aspirational urges. The whirlings and spiralings of autumn leaves are fine illustrations of dance-movements- sweeping, gliding, up-soaring, fluttering down to momentary rest, then away again in new spirals and arcs. Billowing clouds dance in an eternal dissolving and remolding of shapes as the wind drives them across the stage of the sky; clouds are a perfect out-picturing of alchemical changes — silent and smooth, they melt from one aspect to another in an incomparable beauty of motion. A galaxy of colorful garden flowers, bending and swaying on their stems, is a natural "corps-de-ballet." Think of the many kinds of movements of animals and birds; the haughty parade of the peacock; the circular gliding through the water of fish and seal; the staccato flight of the butterfly; the fluid pacings of cats, and the virile prancing of horses.

   How do human beings dance? We all dance according to cosmic plan in our unfoldments of physical and psychic potentialities through the various phases of our growth as organisms. But every individual dances according to the quality of his consciousness. Some people, harmoniously integrated, dance through life in an extraordinary beauty of rhythm. They accept experience as it comes, deal with it, and learn from it to the best of their ability; then, being forward-looking by nature, they pass on to new experience, rhythmically. They exercise a minimum of inner congestion and a maximum of dynamic expression; the entire span of their incarnation is a beautiful arc of evolutionary progress. They work with integrity and idealism — their work-contribution is a true service, a radiation of goodness and true value to all who are affected by it. They love with intensity, amplitude, and joys they are open-minded, receptive to the values of new ideas. Kahlil Gibran, inspired artist and poet, had the soul of a "true dancer;" he said: "Dance with freedom and joy, but tread not on another's toes."

   In the metaphorical sense, "poor dancing" is the result of inner congestions. In the physical sense, a person who is afflicted with excessive shyness, self-consciousness, or physical defect does not — and cannot — dance beautifully, with spontaneity and joy. "Spiritual awkwardnesses" are caused by such emotional and psychological congestions as ignorance, negative selfishness, fear, hatred, greed, envy, materialism, possessiveness, frustration and its attendant cruelties, disappointment- patterns, inertia cynicism, and congestion on form-identity. This latter is one of the deepest-reaching sources of "unrhythmic life-dancing" there is. Its essence is a congestion on appearance as reality; it makes the consciousness focus on form rather than on essence and it serves to throw evaluation completely out of line. People who "dance according to form" rather than "according to Spirit" are those who accept the imposition of standards and evaluations by others, rather than by the establishment of standards from the exercise of individuality. They are the people to whom that which has been established is the symbol of security and rightness; they are crucified by caste-consciousness; they tend to evaluate human personality, character, and experience by a materialistic philosophy which congests them on the outer at the expense of awareness and appreciation of inner truths. The corrupt social and religious standards of past centuries picture this kind of congestion. Hereditary value rather than personal value; family, tradition, and social position represented the focus of appreciation rather than did individual worth. Look almost anywhere and at any epoch and you will see congestion on form as the source of perverting and deflecting the natural rhythmic flow of human development and fulfillment. One perfectly superb example is seen in the misinterpretation of a certain spiritual allegory which had the effect of subjugating women for ages — a karmic device by which man's congestion on form reacted upon himself during his female incarnations.

   This congestion on form is symbolized astrologically by the planetary scope of "Moon-to-Saturn." Persons who are karmically or evolutionarily conditioned to live within the confines of this "scope" are those to whom individuality is practically an un-opened book. The patterning of the standards by which they live is, for the most part, according to that which was established by others in the past. Education, work, religious thought and ceremony, marriage, training of children, relationship-factors, etc., are prescribed for all, generation after generation. The feudal system of Europe and the effect of Confucian philosophy on the Chinese nation are good examples of this formalization of human experience. Esthetic expressions (and all peoples have them to some degree because the esthetic urge is too basically instinctive to be completely denied by anyone) are, for the most part, highly formalized and traditionalized. The esoteric essences of religion are submerged in accretions of rituals and ceremonies which are performed or participated in with feelings of awe and fear rather than as exercises of spiritualized intelligence. Marriage — which in essence should be the most intensely individualized expression of human life-is for the most part for the perpetuation of estate and name.

   We recognize, of course, that there is no "injustice" in people incarnating under such a regime; their consciousness is aligned to the structuralizing of Moon-and-Saturn or they could not be attracted into incarnation through it. But, karmic justice aside, such strict formalizations do inhibit the free flow of expression and unfoldment because fear is such a strong factor inherent in them. For a time on every evolutionary cycle "Moon-and-Saturn" hold the reins; they, together, symbolize the "formal back-bone " of all cyclic experience; but, eventually the individual potentials must be released by transcendence on "that which was;" the planets Uranus and Neptune are the vibrations which represent the "decrystallizing of outmoded form" and the "revelation of the inherent spiritual essence," respectively.

   Our subject at hand is dance but let us remember that all participants in a particular art-expression are members of a spiritual family — a "fraternity" of kindred artistic endeavor. Like any other human group, the artistic family (of whatever kind) is just as subject to the tendency to formalization (and crystallization) as in ally other family-group. When form, structure, rule, and traditional standard are emphasized at the expense of inspiration and spontaneous manifestivity, congestion of artistic value sets in. Look anywhere in the recorded history of artistic endeavor of the human family and you will find many periodic points of congestion on form and tradition, at which times a dearth of inspirational power was evident. Folk-dancing originated in the attempt to perpetuate tribal history and religious belief and tradition in a sort of dramatic representation. These "dramas" subsequently became formalized by inculcating the factors of rhythmic movement and vocal or instrumental accompaniment into what we call "traditional dance" and some of these dance-forms in various parts of the world, are ages old.

   The ballet is a more cultivated and intricately stylized expression of European "rhythmized drama." Originating in Italy as a factor in operatic representation, it was carried to France, developed into an exquisite formal technique as an indispensable part of representations of music-drama. The plots of these "danced-dramas" were, for the most part centered on fantasies of an "out-of-this-world" romanticism depicting allegorical or mythical subjects. In the later years of the last century the ballet, as a cultivated art-expression, was adopted by Russia and through the inspirational and dramatic powers of artists of that country it was amplified tremendously by the exploitation of its own resources as a dance-art, divorced from dependence on the opera. We still speak of the best of this art-form as the "Russian Ballet;" the manifestive and interpretative artists of that country stamped it with the brand of their particular quality of genius. The ballet companies of the principal Russian cities were recognized as the supreme exponents of this art and their great soloists occupy conspicuous niches in the hall of those immortally renowned by art-lovers throughout the world.

   Then toward the last years of the last century, a meteor blazed across the sky of European and American culture and artistic endeavor that shed a radiance of intensified inspiration on the world of dance that was to decrystallize the hyper-formality of ballet tradition into a new octave of dance-consciousness. This "meteor" was Isadora Duncan an inspired, inspiring, and intrepid artiste, and through her dance-service, — one of the foremost "decrystallizers" of the past century.

   Astrological students will be interested in her horoscope; it is well worth studying. Data: May 27,1878, approximately 1:00 A.M., 38 degrees N., 1221/2 degrees W. Jupiter should be in the twelfth house, Sun in third; Pisces, ruled by Neptune, is the Ascendant-sign, and Sagittarius is on the Mid-heaven. Suggested reading for information concerning her life-experience and artistic ideals: her auto-biography, My Life, and her Art of the Dance; also many books and brochures by other writers, which are available in most libraries and book stores.

   Note that the ruler of the chart, Neptune, is the principle of instrumentation, and one of Isadora's basic artistic tenets was to regard the physical body as a vehicle for inspirational powers. She was intensely sensitive to music, but it has been said of her that she could dance without music because her movements were so harmonious and "right" that she "made music visible." Two factors in her chart picture the universality of her influence: Jupiter, ruler of Midheaven, in the twelfth House in the sign Aquarius is trine to her uncongested Gemini Sun. Her spiritual power was enormous — both as a performer and as a teacher; this aspect pictures the basic religious purpose of her incarnation. You will recognize this when you read testimonials written by people who saw her dance. She incarnated to re- stimulate, through art and beauty (and she was, in her person, one of the most beautiful of women), the pure religious aspirational urge through contemplation of the human body as an "installment of the Divine" and as the vehicle for purely inspired gesture and movement. She brought to the social and esthetic congestions of her age the refreshment of a consciousness which had its abiding place in beauty, truth, and love. She reminded men and women of the essential purity and goodness of their spiritual being and she sought in many ways to encourage people to recover the naturalness of their own inner truths, by living in terms of sincerity, friendliness, and inspiration.

   On the world of concert-dance, her influence was almost cataclysmic in its regenerative effect. Her artistic truth was that of sincere inspiration, not that of accrued tradition. Many other manifestive dancers had their part to play in the regeneration of dance-concepts, but Isadora blazed the trail by the exercise of her individualized inspirational powers (Venus-trine-Uranus, in fire signs).

   She said in effect: "Live fully and courageously; free yourselves from the fears of out-worn traditions; love from the center of your consciousness with joy, respect, and generosity; live with courtesy and grace; champion the poor, and the oppressed, and heal the wounds of the spirit; lead children to an awareness of their innate beauties of body and soul and help them to know respect for their individual powers and abilities; let women perceive as never before their powers to inspire by the exercise of beauties of heart and mind; let men open their hearts to a renewed adoration of the Beautiful in Nature and in Humanity; let the fraternity of artists work a consecration on human life through fellowship and sincere efforts."

   This great logo would have us all "dance" with joy, grace, health, and inspiration. We perceive, in our charts, the rhythmic movements of the planets from time of birth through the cycles of unfoldment and maturity, the patterns of our relationship-life, the challenges which we have created for ourselves and the powers which we have developed to transmute those challenges into triumphs. The fulfillings of these patterns comprise our "dance of life;" let us move with the cosmic forces rhythmically, with joys with courage, and with the inspiration of faith and understanding. This is the dance on the ever-upward spiral of evolutionary progress.

Supplemental Student
Material Reference:
Studies in Astrology,
Elman Bacher