Water is today’s theme.
Water is one of four aboriginal substances comprising the Western hermetic canon of sacred elements. Water inhabits our world in literal and symbolic forms. Today’s AF practicum considers two symbolic forms for water—the River as Time and the Ocean as Memory. All physical rivers empty onto the shores of a distant sea. Let’s explore their symbolic narrative.
Water joins three other constituents to complete a quartet of sacred elements–earth, air and fire. These primal substances are the rudiments for putting the facts of Western experience in order. Considered separately and in combination, water, earth, air and fire explicate our direct lived experience. Fire combines with Air to form Lightning. Earth and Water combine to form Nature. Lightning and Nature co-depend.
The four elements are more than a simplistic chemistry to explain Nature’s mechanics. Beyond the material boundaries of Nature the four primal elements also serve as a meta-chemistry to help us understand how cosmos also accommodates psyche. Each sign of the Zodiac, to make the point, is assigned a temperament identified with the elements,–Fire: Aries; Water: Cancer; Air: Libra; Earth: Capricorn.
Enter: Water
We experience water in different forms, as ice, steam, or rain. We do not consider ice, steam or rain to be elements per se, but phases; the phases of water are not separable from water as a unity. Why not?
Answer: Transformation. On a deep intuitive level we discern transformation to be intrinsic to identity. “…the child is parent of the adult,” to paraphrase Wordsworth.
The temperament of water as ice, steam or rain (think Zodiac–Scorpio, Pisces, Cancer) is plural. In this example, water is one identity informed by plural temperaments–expressed as a recurrent unity or archetype. The axiom, All unity is plural–is one of the central tenets of occult history. The Gospel writer may have been suggesting as much when he wrote these words:
“In my Father’s house there are many mansions.” John 14:2
The gospel of John was written some 1900 years ago in the first century CE.
What might the poet of the “Four Quartets” be telling us about about water as archetype a thousand years hence, in 1941?
“I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.”
“…I think that the river is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed…”
“…then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges…”
Is it possible to connect rivers and bridges with wisdom studies and the Western Mystery Tradition? Shall we free associate on rivers for a few paragraphs to see where it leads?
Enter: Time.
“Words move, music moves Only in Time.” Ibid.
Add rivers–“Words move, music moves, and rivers move Only in Time.”
Do rivers symbolize Time’s Arrow? Each moves away from a source of origins, always asymmetrically–which is to say in only one direction. The river moves, hastening and slowing according to some remote intention, as if it is being pulled, or called, forward; as if it is being summoned. If it is summoned, it must already be present as Memory. Can a Mother Ocean summon a Child it does not know?
Above ground rivers move and meander forming riverbeds, following as they do, gravity guided contours of least resistance. Bounded on two sides–a watery lane riding atop every conceivable terrain, mountain, valley, jungle, plain and desert, rivers hasten to answer the call of a far away ocean. Rivers, and there are many, conflate with their kind en route to a shared destiny—one and all individual rivers eventually disappear from Time altogether in the “silence between two waves of the sea”. Entering the ocean’s maw to rejoin Memory is a form of re-entering the womb. It is a riddle that puzzled Nicodemus, to which Jesus answered:
“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except an individual be born of water and of the Spirit, the individual cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” John 3:5
Experiment: sprinkle flower petals on the surface of a pond. Drop a stone in the pond at any point to observe what happens. The petals move “out and in” (away from the center of the Earth, and towards the center of the Earth). The “wave” made by the stone lifts the petals—but does not move them. The wave moves through the medium of the water forming circles of ever expanding diameter (radiance) until the boundaries of the pond are encountered. The petals are Memories held in suspension as archetypes; once in place, they do not move. They await our next transit as Spirit–as a non-physical wave (vibration) that lifts but does not push–and with it, delivers the next opportunity to disempower a painful suspended memory. If we miss, guess what–we return to try again. What makes this possible?
Answer: The ocean of Memory ever re-supplying the river of Action. The river cannot supply itself. Snow capped mountains and/ or springs become the river. And only the oceans are old enough to play this role. Before Light, oceans were the face of the world.
“In truth, man is a polluted river. One must be a sea, to receive a polluted river and not be defiled.” Source: “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
“..darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:2.
Astrological aside in the Northern Hemisphere: the sign of Cancer represents motherhood and Water, think: July. Capricorn is associated with cold, barren, Earth, think: January. Capricorn and Cancer occupy opposing regions of the horoscope with 180 degrees of separation. Who thinks about maternity and flowing waters when visualizing cold Earthy Capricorn? Ask Aquarius–the water bearer! Then ask far away Cancer!
By tradition the Moon rules Cancer; Saturn rules Capricorn. For centuries spiritual alchemy has considered Saturn the “higher octave” of the Moon. This means “barren, cold, diligent as Father Time” Capricorn–resonates as the higher octave of “warm, maternal, breast and stomach nurturing” Cancer. If ice, steam and rain are temperaments informing unity as Water, is it time to ponder Capricorn and Cancer as a River: Ocean unity? It is.
We close with a pictorial tableau from the Tarot to illustrate the prominence of Water in the Major Arcana, followed by a brief visit to the Moon with a mnemonic for Memory.
The following tableau of Major Keys begins with a mountain peak, Key 0, The Fool. The element of Water becomes visible in Key 2 and continues through Keys 3, 4, 13, 14, 17, 18 and 20—where we observe water moving throughout as a river–until Key 20–where the river becomes an ocean.
The last Key in the Tableau, Key 9, pictures the Hermit, like The Fool, atop a mountain peak. The Fool represents a call to Limitless Freedom–in the company of lots of additional mountain peaks to ascend along the way. The Hermit representing Attainment through Union is alone. The Sun warms the Fool. The Hermit is warmed by a gray robe representing wisdom attained by way of direct lived experience–and practice. The Fool is illuminated by our Day Star. The light held by the Hermit originates with The Hermit. The Hermit is a source for the River.
In the Western Mystery Tradition we associate the Moon with non-waking awareness and an Akashic ocean–a repository for all human questions asked across Time and all direct lived experience ever traveled by river. The Moon is a suitable place to rest today’s discussion about Water as Time and Memory.
Clues informing metaphysical Memories are often connected to the physical counterparts of the astrological Moon–think: breasts, stomach, maternity, and womb. Any doubt? Ask Freud.
In another post we will revisit the Poet’s caution about bridge building:
“I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god—sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.”
The search for the enlightened engineer and her bridges begins now!
With gratitude for your patient attention, we bid you peace,
Frater A
Astrologers' Folio 