Sabian Symbols: An Easter promenade
An Easter promenade
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This universal idea is best expressed through planets in
Pisces 17 (16°- 17°)INTENSIFICATION OF SPIRITUAL GRACE THROUGH CELEBRATION
The emotional aspect of spiritual practice is expanded through group participation in ritual and ceremony "Celebrate your spirituality with traditional public rituals" In contrast to the individual’s quiet approach to finding a heightened awareness the group’s tends to be loud and celebratory. At various times of the year according to the cultural myth of our community, we are invited or even expected to participate in a demonstration of alignment. This is all the more powerful when this is done within a sacred context such as Easter’s association with Christ and the renewal and rebirth principle.
Rudhyar: AN EASTER PARADE |
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An Easter promenade
Celebration
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The image we show the outer world characterises the inner self
At one end we have New Orleans’s Mardi Gras, and at the other, various well-to-do Christians in their Sunday best – it’s all show. Typical human beings have the propensity to define themselves in a communal setting – by how they dress, and how they behave, differently from the rest. This is more than the satisfaction of our need for attention, and serves a real and important function by bringing into conscious awareness a clearly-defined and uniquely expressive self-image. In a way we are idealising ourselves by dressing up – and thus we gain insights about the ideal. The image we present towards the outer world characterises our inner, and more hidden, sense of self. Unless our society allows us to celebrate ourselves as we choose to be, it is not our society. We need our idealised self-image accepted or we cannot realise it. Variety and extremes of self-exhibition can often lack grace, even to the point of being ridiculous, yet they test our social environment, so they have genuine value. If we find that our Easter persona doesn’t fit – then maybe our workaday personality doesn’t either, and we need to find a better place, or way, to be. Any urges we may have need to be projected into creating our future. Those denied by society will be refined and then accepted, or taken elsewhere where they can be celebrated – or at least accepted. In other words, whatever we feel we want to do is good at some place, at some time. Our path is to find that place and time, or at least to transmute the urge by questing. This tireless process of self-refinement acts as an inspiration to others – those who reluctantly take on the repressive beliefs of a fearful community. They need to see a model of self-assertion in order, self-assertively, to become who they are. To the wise, Easter speaks of rebirth rather than crucifixion. With grace, we are able to go against the processes of enforced conformity and be reborn into purity so that all parts of us are celebrated. |
