Our Birth in Consciousness

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It is Summer Solstice the first day of summer the hot air pregnant with possibilities is beckoning us to enjoy the light of our day! In the northern hemisphere this is the day longest in the year when humanities pantheon of solar deities parade across the southern skies their golden rays fertilizing Earth with solar vitality. Schools are closed adding hours for playing punctuated with the laughter of children echoing the setting sun. People who can afford to are planning holidays away from home looking forward to a leisurely enjoying of time with family. And for others even the innocence of sun bathing is offered in worship to the Sun.

Sun worshiping is as old as consciousness itself manifesting in the names of Inti, Garuda, Helios, Ra, Huitzilopochtil, and any number of others. Every known culture worshiped the Sun and many honored the Summer Solstice as evidenced at Stonehenge, the Temple of Karnak, and the Caracol Tower at Chichenitzá. It seems self evident in the myths which we have inherited from our ancestors that we continue to share with them the awe and wonderment of our discovery of the Universe. For those of us walking arm in arm with the mythological wisdom of our ancestors we understand that these myths provide a revealing blueprint of the unfolding process of our consciousness. The mythic themes shared by all cultures; the deluge, virgin birth, resurrected hero, have always been our mirror and irrefutable witnesses speaking about what we experience outside our self as a reflection of what we experience inside our self.

Astrology is an ancient practice providing a map of the unconscious that is mirrored in the events of daily life. If we ponder the unfathomable depths of our unconscious we come face to face with astrology’s ancient axiom “as above, so below”, recognizing that the smallest thing in the universe is subject to the same process as the largest thing in the universe. We savor the ocean in a drop and experience the events of our day reflected in the events of the universe. In the Hindu creation myth, The King and the Corpse, the demiurge creating the world is in yogic meditation when quite unexpectedly the forms of his inner vision break forth from within him and surround him as a pantheon of brilliant gods. I cannot imagine a more poetic expressing of the manifestation of our unconscious nor a better companion to the astrological understanding of our unconscious seeking to be seen, heard, tasted, touched, and smelled.

In astrology the Sun is the very heart of our consciousness; the radiant light of our spirit, the essential core of our individuality speaking the words “ It is I”. When we are under the influence of the Sun we shower the world with our radiant light. We feel the power of the living intelligence of life in the beating of our heart and the flowing of our blood. At Summer Solstice the Sun crosses the ecliptic at 00 Cancer which in astrological parlance signifies the revitalizing of our conscious awareness and the annual re birthing of our life potential. When the Sun is in Cancer the themes of pregnancy, birth, and nourishment surface from the depths of our unconscious. We need only consider the metaphorical impregnating of the Earth at Summer Solstice; turning her face to the Sun and suggestively tilting her body beckoning maximum penetration, to appreciate the celestial significance of our annual re birthing in conscious awareness of the vitality of our life.

When the Sun is in Cancer our conscious light, our individuality, descends into the primordial world of our unconscious dreaming. 00 Cancer, the Summer Solstice point on the ecliptic, marks the astrological charting of the midnight path of the Sun, the lowest point of the zodiac, and the deepest contact our conscious light has with the nourishing womb of Mother Earth. The sign Cancer is ruled by the celestial light of the Moon, the ancient symbol of the Mother Goddess expressed in the mysteriously changing faces of the feminine. When our solar light is under the influence of Cancer we are like a baby cradled in the arms of the mother needing her nourishment and sustenance for our continued surviving. When the Sun is in Cancer our consciousness is being feed from the depths of our unconscious knowing, from our primordial past, nourished from the wisdom of our ancestors. Our birth is never easy, either in mind or body, our struggle to “be” unfolding through our pain triumphant in the awakening of our conscious awareness.

“Your pain is but the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” Kahlil Gibran