The Seventh Holy Night - Virgin/Virgo

VIRGIN/VIRGO

The Region of Virgo is related to the Hierarchy of the Kyriotetes, or in Spiritual Science - The Spirits of Wisdom. The Imagination that corresponds to this Zodiac is of the leading Kyriotetes on the Sun, the Virgin depicted in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse of St John, the woman clothed with the Sun, wearing a crown of stars and standing on the sickle moon with the dragon at her feet. The Gnostics knew this being as the Divine Sophia whose wisdom has rayed down towards humanity during the three evolutionary stages prior to earth evolution - Saturn, Sun and Moon.  The twelve stars correspond to old Saturn evolution; the Sun image corresponds to Sun evolution; the sickle moon to old Moon evolution. 

As we have seen before, Christ in his descent to earth was 'born' into the sphere of Kyriotetes, into the sphere of the Sun Spirit, or Sun as a Star through the gate of Ram in order to redeem the twelve senses and the physical body.

The Mary of the Luke Gospel was closely related to this being of the Cosmos. She is the Twin Soul of the Nathan Jesus, a pure soul that like the Nathan Jesus had not participated in the fall of man and was Paradisal. Because of this she was given the task to make her own descent towards the earth carrying the wisdom of the Sophia down into the Souls of men ahead of time, in preparation for both the descent of Christ and the birth of Jesus who would become his vessel. Rudolf Steiner named her Anthroposophia, for she is the inspirer of the Wisdom that lives in the soul of Man. At the turning point in time, she had the task of uniting the Region of the Virgin to the Region of the Fishes through the deep connection that existed between the two Marys: Mary of Luke Gospel and Mary of the Matthew gospel.

Before the fall, one could say, the two Marys were one being, a being which separated just before the fall into two beings. These two sister souls found one another again in Palestine. Mary of the Matthew Gospel was the incarnation of the oldest woman the earthly Eve, while Mary of the Luke Gospel was the youngest woman, the paradisal Eve. And, in the same way that both Jesus children, one a young soul (Nathan) and the other an old soul (Zarathustra), united at the steps of the Temple in Jerusalem to create the perfect vessel for Christ, Rudolf Steiner tells us the two Marys united at the moment of the Baptism in the Jordan to create a vessel for the Divine Sophia. Mary of the Matthew Gospel, the old Eve individuality on earth, united with the Paradisal Mary of the Luke gospel, who had her abode in heaven, and this made the old Mary into a 'Virgin' again, that is, pure. Through the power of the Paradisal Mary or the heavenly Eve, the earthly Eve was united with the heavenly Sophia for all times. The heavenly Sophia  incarnated 'Vicariously' into the Matthew Mary right down into her bones, perfecting her soul into a 'Mother of God' in order to enable the Birth of Christ into Jesus of Nazareth. Thereafter, Mary of the Matthew Gospel became the earthly reflection of the Divine Sophia, and the bearer of the highest human virtue - the Wisdom of the Kyriotetes. From that time on humanity became the lowest member of the Sobornal (collective) being of the Sophia. And when the Matthew Mary died she became a Bodhisattva and joined the circle of masters.

At the foot of the cross it is John who is asked by Christ Jesus to take this Wisdom of the Sophia, the Mother of God, into his 'house' or soul. And it is for this reason that later he is able to write his Gospel and the Book of Revelations. John becomes known from that time on as John the 'Divine' because he is overshone by the Divine Sophia.

John's connection with this being occurred in a Macrocosmic way when he ascended,  many incarnations later, to a 'conscious' experience of Christ as the Cosmic Lamb in the region where Christ unites with Virgo - the Sphere of the Sophia or Kyriotetes in a marriage, an initiation which Valentin Andrea calls, The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz'.

Rudolf Steiner tells us that it is from the two Regions Fishes and Virgin that in future times will proceed spiritual forces that are beneficent for human evolution because this represents the boundaries of the workings of the Cosmic Sophia. The Hebrews knew that the Sophia would one day bring man in connection with the seven zodiacal regions - from Fishes to Virgo as stated in the book of Proverbs: 'Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars'.

So when we look up to the region of Virgo on this Seventh Night, may we see the connection between the Sphere of Kyriotetes, the Divine Sophia and the Sun. May we see how the Luke Mary descended to earth to give birth to the Sun Garment of Christ, the Nathan Soul, and may we see how she and the Matthew Mary enabled the Birth of Christ into Jesus at the Baptism. May we feel gratitude for the being of Anthroposophy and her connection to the Divine Sophia, for it is through this connection that we can acquire the wisdom to bring about the birth of the Christ within our souls! 

Twelve Holy Nights - The Sixth Night - Scales/Libra

SCALES/LIBRA

The Region of Scales is related to the hierarchy of the Dynamis, or Spirits of Movement. Scales or Libra are responsible for the balanced movement of the planets in relation to one another and this includes the sun, which is their principle abode and from which they send down their beneficent forces to the planets and to the earth itself. There are seven principal planetary Spirits of Movement.

The expression of this  harmonious movement of the planets through the guidance of these spirits is experienced through the medium of inspiration as the 'Music of the spheres' and is manifested on earth in the chemical properties of earthly substances. The Dynamis or Spirits of movement were the regents of that aspect of old world evolution designated as 'moon' and they were responsible for bringing about the right relationship between Sun and Moon forces at this time, so that both Sun and Moon stood like two sides of a balance.  Occultists named the Zodiacal sign that man was entering when the ego began to come into its own, as Scales. For although they were responsible for giving man the Astral body at this time, their sacrifice was the motivating impulse for the Exusiai, whom we mentioned on our journey through the Fifth Night, to sacrifice their lowest substance (Ego) to man on earth.  

The region of scales is also the lowest of the light aspect of the Zodiac or the seven 'ascending forces',   They became a part of the 'light' aspect long ago (middle of Atlantean times). It was from this time that the being of Christ began His descent through the Gate of the Archangels to redeem the Astral body (thinking, feeling, and willing) which had been gifted to humanity by the Dynamis or Spirits of movement during Moon evolution. If Christ had not sacrificed his own perfected Astral body or Spirit Self, a harmony and balance between these three soul principles could not have been brought about leaving these principles prey to a temptation to separate into three types of human beings: Thinking would have manifested in an Eagle-like human being; Feeling in a Lion-like human being and Willing in a Bull-like human being; while in an inner sense these human beings would have been dragon-like in their Astral nature.

The principle threat was in the thinking life and through it Ego-consciousness. This would have meant a complete extinguishing of the human Ego. 

In order to accomplish this sacrifice the Sun being, Christ, united once again with the Nathan soul so that He could become the bearer of the forces of Sun, Moon and Earth which correspond microcosmically to the forces of thinking feeling and will in the lower regions of the Sun sphere, which extends to the sphere of the Moon or Astral world. It is because of this that the region of Scales was able to move into the 'light' aspect of the Zodiac, in other words, the Dynamis began to move upwards to become a higher hierarchy. 

In the Greek mysteries the initiates saw this reflection of Christ from the Moon sphere and they called it, Apollo. Apollo represented the triumph of the Sun Spirit over man’s passions, for Apollo was the harmoniser of man's thinking, feeling and willing by way of the lyre, which sounded with the harmonious tones of the human soul. The Sun Spirit as the guardian of the wild moonlike, stormy passions was the champion of the rational, objective thinking which had brought order to the other soul components through music -  the Music of the Spheres, which is connected to the balancing and harmonising aspect of the Scales and its influence upon the Dynamis or spirits of movement.

The region of the scales is also related to Buddha, who ascended to this region after fully developing his Astral Body and his Etheric Body (Manas/Moon and Buddhi/Sun). Rudolf Steiner tells us that Buddha was able to achieve in himself a perfect balance between macrocosm and microcosm - Nirvana - through an inspiration from the Spirits of Movement or Dynamis. The spiritual Star of Buddha (Mercury) rose in the region of the Scales. For this reason Buddha was able to donate his Nirmanakaya, his perfected Astral body to Jesus of Nazareth. The Nirmanakay resounded as the 'choir' of heavenly hosts heard by the Shepherds at the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

In Jesus of Nazareth we see this perfect balance of Sun (Ego) and Moon forces (Soul - Astral body) through the unification of the Zarathustra individuality in Yeshua, and Buddha's perfected Astral body, his Nirmanakaya, in Jesus, which created the vessel for the Christ being at the Baptism at the River Jordan. 

So when we look up to the region of Scales on this Sixth Holy Night, may we see the connection of the Scales and the Dynamis, the spirits of movement, with the human soul and the consciousness of the ego through thought. May we see the descent of Christ through the gate of the Goat into the Moon sphere as an impulse for the harmonisation of our souls, seen on earth as Apollo with his Lyre. And finally may we see on earth the connection between Jesus and Yeshua and Buddha and Zarathustra as an earthly reflection of this harmonisation of Sun and Moon forces. 

The Fifth Night - Scorpion/Eagle

SCORPION/EAGLE 

The region of Scorpion/Eagle is connected to the higher beings called Exusiai in Christian Esotericism, and the Spirits of Form in Spiritual Science. They 'form' the 'body' of the sun and so, light is the principle garment that they use to manifest their influence in the world, while their essence is Spiritual Light.  They are responsible for all that has self contained form on earth, therefore, they have been given the leadership of earth evolution. The Exusiai or Elohim receive their forces from the realm of the zodiac called Scorpion/Eagle.

In Genesis, the leading 6 Exusiai on the sun are called 'God'.  'Father God'  refers to the entirety of the six Elohim together with the seventh who is called Jehova. Jehova is the god who sacrificed his abode on the sun to become the regent of the Moon, so as to be closer to human beings. Through the co-operation of the entire circle of 7 Elohim the human being was able to receive the 'provisional' ego - the breath of life.  The Elohim accomplished this deed because they were able to connect to the sphere of the Holy Spirit through Elohim Jehova on the Moon. The reflected Holy Spirit in turn enabled the descent of Christ into the 'body' of the sun.  

The double image of Scorpion Eagle, as we have noted before, illustrates the peculiarity of the ego. 

The bible tells us that in receiving the ego from the Father God, the human being was exposed to Luciferic temptation. The human being ate from the apple of good and evil, that is, he/she grew conscious of the world and of the inner self and in so doing also began to lose his/her connection to the gods. 

The Scorpion is that aspect of the ego that seeks only the darkness of earthly things. It is the base, selfish aspect in all of us; the aspect that denies the light of the spirit. On earth Judas is a representative of Scorpio.

The Eagle on the other hand, soars aloft in the heavenly spaces and represents the ideal human being, the one that is 'Christ-like' or has the Light of Christ shinning into his Ego - or to put it practically, his blood, because blood is the physical expression of the Ego. In the drama of the life of Christ Jesus on earth the light aspect of this Zodiac, Eagle, is represented by Lazarus/John, the writer of the Gospel of John and Apocalypse.

This region is also connected to speech as only ego-bearing beings can speak and this leads us to how this Zodiac relates to the descent of Christ. 

In an earlier earthly, evolutionary stage (Atlantis), the human being faced a temptation that was connected to his seven organs. Selfishness of the seven principle organs would have led to illness without resolve. Rudolf Steiner gives us indications that  unbridled desires would have been the result of a distortion of human language because language would have expressed only the inner subjective experience of pain or pleasure of the individual organs and would not have related a human relationship to the outside world. Had human beings succumbed to this temptation we would never have been able to work creatively through the word.

In order to harmonise these Etheric forces of the human organs Christ had to sacrifice his perfected Etheric body, or Budhi by descending to that sphere where our organs receive their enlivening: the region where resides the spiritual archetypes for our physical body, the Sun as it appears as a focus of the Planetary Sphere (lower Devachan) or the sphere of Exusiai, who are said to safeguard our language. Once again the Nathan Soul who incarnates later as Jesus Christ's vehicle for this.  On earth this sacrificial manifestation of Christ is seen by initiates in the mysteries. They called this manifestation, Krishna. In the Bhagavad-Gita Krishna is the teacher of morality, of overcoming temperament, slavery to impermanence and habit through the power of an Ego that has taken into itself the Word, the Law, and Devotion.

We see this connection to the word characterised in St John's (Eagle) Gospel: 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word.' He was able to write this because he was  taught the mystery of the Word by an initiate of Ephesus when he was only a child. Afterwards he was initiated by Christ who was the 'word' incarnated in the body of a human being. Later John journeyed to Ephesus, to the old mystery centre that was closely connected to speech, in order to Christianise the initiation of the 'Word'.

At the last supper we see a picture of what every human being must accomplish in order to unite their egos with Christ: they must replace the lower ego (intellect) with the higher ego, that is, with the Holy Spirit, or Higher Self (Spirit Self), just as Judas was replaced by John the Evangelist in Christ's circle.

An important reincarnation of St John the Divine was that of the enigmatic Christian Rosencreutz. In the future, Rudolf Steiner tells us, he will take up the task of transforming the lower ego into the higher ego and will undergo a great sacrifice because of it. He will take into his karma, the karma of all who do not, of their own accord, rise to the higher ego consciousness of Christ.

So when we look up to the region of Scorpion/Eagle on this Fifth Night, may we observe there the connection of the Elohim with Christ and Krishna (the Nathan soul) in the heavens and see on earth the double edged sword of the dark aspect of Scorpio and the light aspect of the Eagle represented by Judas and John - two aspects that live in our own souls side by side. 

May the Eagle of St John in us overcome the Scorpio of Judas and may we unite with Christ through the esoteric wisdom of Christian Rosencreutz!  

   

The Fourth Holy Night - Archer/Sagittarius

ARCHER/SAGITTARIUS

The Archai rule the region of the Archer or the Centaur/Sagittarius. The Archer represents the visible imagination of the two opposite poles in the human being - the human and the animal, the higher and the lower man. In a child the forces of the horizontal, that is, the crawling stage, are overcome finally, by the upright walking stage and signify a victory of the human nature over the animal nature. The higher beings that belong to this hierarchy, the Archai, are the ones who inspire uprightness in the human being (the ability to stand inside the physical body provided for a particular incarnation) because they were undergoing their human stage when the foundations of the physical body of human beings were laid down at the beginning of the creation of our cosmos - on old Saturn. The Archai were then connected with the forces of thinking in relation to the physical body (the physical brain) on Old Sun. One could say their task now, is to bestow on humanity the forces necessary for ego consciousness to arise through thought, which is signified by the arrow inside the bow. Ego consciousness enters the 'person' and is individualised to become what we call the 'personality'. That is why the Archai are sometimes called the 'Spirits of Personality'.

This relates cosmically to the descent of the Second Logos (Christ) into the realm of the Sun as a star, or the Sophia (the Spirits of Wisdom), as we mentioned in our first Holy Night. Christ entered the womb of Sophia through the gateway of the Ram or Lamb and that is why when viewed from this perspective, He is characteristically called the 'Cosmic Lamb'.

In order to enter the womb of Sophia or the Region of the Sun as a spirit, Christ had to relinquish the lowest aspect of His being, that aspect that is connected to our physical body by the barest thread - His perfected physical body, Atma or Spirit Man.

In earthly terms this sacrifice occurred when humankind was assuming an upright position (Lemuria). This upright bearing tore human beings away from the spiritual forces of the earth and made it possible for adversarial powers - powers that worked contrary to man’s true path of development - to desire to bring disarray to humanity’s twelve sense organs.

We can see how the upright position relates to the sense organs when we consider that the spine is the protector of the nerves which carry impulses to and from the various sense organs. The foundation for these twelve senses (Word Sense, Thought Sense, Ego Sense, Touch, Life Sense, Motion Sense, Sense of Balance, Smell, Taste, Seeing, Warmth sense, Hearing) had been established on old Saturn when a seed for the physical body was laid through the working of the twelve cosmic streams proceeding from the twelve-fold circle of the zodiac (remember the Archangels we spoke of yesterday?) but they acquired their full significance when man became an Ego-bearing being and became upright. The human task was to harmonise these senses with the twelve zodiac streams and it was this harmonisation that the adversarial powers desired to prevent. We see here a connection with the 12 masters of Harmony of Feelings and Sensations. 

Had the human being not been able to harmonise these sense organs, they would have acquired an independence of their own – a selfishness. Each organ would have become egoistic because the Ego's individualising power would have gone too far, making the organs of perception acquire a kind of personality and only want to transmit to the soul what it sensed of pain or bliss. This turning inward, if you like, would have prevented human beings from retaining their uprightness through the chaos that would have ensued. Therefore, by necessity, humanity would have had to return to the forces of the earth (the horizontal forces) to survive.

Christ had to descend from his lofty heights to overcome this threat and he did so by uniting with the Nathan Soul,  the sinless soul untouched by the fall, who later incarnated as Jesus of the Luke Gospel. 

Together they harmonised the forces of the twelve Zodiacs and produced an Etheric image of the ‘Ideal’ man. An echo of this ideal man was seen by human beings on earth as 'Rama'.   In the Ramayana, Rama is the eldest son of king Dasaratha of the Suryavanshi (of the Solar Dynasty) the direct descendants of the Sun. Rama is known as a sat-purusa, the ‘ideal man’ the ‘upright man’ in control of his ‘senses’. Note how he holds the bow and arrow in the picture, how balanced his posture is, how he holds his head, how his feet touch the ground but he seems not to be affected by gravity!

Such a sacrifice seen by human beings inspired them to remain upright so that each sense organ could say:

‘Not us but the ideal man in us; not us but the Christ in us.’

On earth we know that both Jesus Children were sons of Abraham. These children like all others  learnt to crawl and to walk. They could only do so because Abraham, as the Father of the Jewish people, provided a lineage for the creation of the appropriate physical bodies. As such Abraham is closely connected with this Holy Night. Abraham was the one who was willing to sacrifice his son Issac as a sacrificial lamb because God had commanded it.


This walking and crawling is the beginning of a three-fold process for the two Jesus children. The first was the unification of the two Jesus children at the Temple steps in Jerusalem. At this point the Jesus of the Matthew Gospel relinquished his physical body to enter into the body and soul of Jesus of the Luke Gospel, who could then say, 'Not I, but Yeshua in me!' And Yeshua could say, I experience the world through Jesus' twelve senses. From that time on he was able to 'stand-in' his own 'Personality' before the Rabbis in the Temple.

The second process was at the Baptism in the Jordan, when the Spirit of the Matthew Jesus, Yeshua, once again sacrificed life in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, to allow the Spirit of Christ to enter so that Jesus could then say 'Not I but the Christ in me - I experience the word through my Twelve Senses! Christ himself could say, I experience the world through Jesus' twelves senses!

The third process occured after the Mystery of Golgotha and the death of Christ Jesus, at the resurrection of the 'ideal' physical body, that is, after the spirit of Christ had permeated the entire physical body of Jesus and by this means spiritualised it. This created a potential for each individual human being to do the same, to say: Not I but the Christ in me. It also marked the beginning of the spiritualisation of the 'body' of the world itself, so that the world could say the same.

So on this Fourth Holy Night, when we look up to the heavens to the region of Archer, may we see cosmically the connection between the Archai, the Region of Ram, the first sacrifice of Christ in the vessel of the Nathan soul. On earth, may we see the connection between the physical body and ego consciousness and how Abraham is connected to the physical body of both Jesus children and the twelve senses, to prepare the perfect vessel for Christ.

May we stand upright, knowing that with our physical being (that which is the most perfect and the oldest) we may be the highest being on earth but we are also in the process of becoming the lowest being of the hierarchies. A being that is in some ways the most important being in creation, for human beings are the only beings that have 'Free Will' because human beings are not bound to the animalistic physical body, but are free to find their way to the Spirit by their own efforts!

The Third Holy Night - Goat/Capricorn

GOAT/CAPRICORN

The Archangels rule the Region of the Goat or Capricorn. The Archangels have a special relationship to the birth of the inner sun and the foremost of these Archangels at the time of Christ was Michael.  Rudolf Steiner tells us that the Archangels were able to imbibe the wisdom of the sun and to create light from it, and so the light in the cosmos is their gift. For this reason they have a particular relationship to the heart which is like an inner sun, and the light the heart engenders within the human being. Michael battles with the dragon of darkness every Autumn so that the Christmas season, the season of the Goat, can be experienced in the right 'light', preventing thereby, the darkening of the Christ Impulse.

John the Baptist was able to experience the midnight sun and this became the Waterman initiation. Such an initiation always reveals the circle of twelve archangels that form the cosmic aura around the sun in rainbow colours. In the north in the depths of winter darkness, this is an inner experience, here in the south it is an outer one. Those of us in the south, have the opportunity to observe the sun around the midday hour, on a warm summer's day. At such times, if the conditions are favourable, one is able to see a corona - a rainbow around the sun. This is a gift of grace which we carry with us into the depths of winter, and the memory of it can help us to observe the inner sun (the midnight sun) and the corona of the archangels around it who are the heavenly inspirers of the Holy Nights which occur at the time of their greatest influence. These are the Masters of Wisdom of Feelings and Sensations and their task is to shine down to earth the twelve cosmic aspects of Christ. They were the inspirers of the twelve disciples who, as their representatives, had the task of reflecting these twelve aspects physically, outwardly on earth.

On earth it is the Archangel Gabriel who announces to Mary the Birth of Jesus. In the heavens it was through the gateway of Capricorn, or the Goat, the region of the Archangels, that Christ descended into the sheaths of Jesus at the Baptism in the Jordan, bypassing the region of the angels altogether, to bring with him the Baptism of Fire we spoke of -  the baptism of the spirit. Air and Fire, are the lowest physical elements in which Archangels can become manifest on earth.

How do we draw close to the Archangels?

At this time of the year, our words must become spiritualised if we want to draw close to the archangels who rule the element of speech. Capricorn is also connected to the knee  - bending the knee is a sign of reverence - kneeling in prayer for instance - spiritualised speech.

This night also has a special relationship to Zarathustra, the individuality who was the most exalted pupil of the Sun oracle and so capable of observing Christ in the corona of the sun. He was incarnated again as the Matthew Jesus from the lineage of Solomon, and he sacrificed his abode in Jesus at the Baptism in order to make way for the being of Christ.

So, dear friends, when we look upwards on this night to the region of the Goat, may we see the connection between Christ, the Archangels, specially the being of Michael, and Master Jesus, the individuality of Zarathustra, the great Persian king, who sang his Hymns to the sun. May our words in the day express the warmth and light of the spirit that has entered into us at night because we have drawn close to Michael and the Masters of Wisdom. Perhaps we might even wake up in our sleep a moment to see the sun at midnight!

Let
Love
Warmed
Words
Light-
Filled
Live!

The Second Holy Night - Waterman.

WATERMAN

The region of Waterman is connected with the hierarchy of the angels who have a special affinity with water in the world, water being the element in which they manifest outwardly. Inwardly they are connected to the etheric body in human beings.

The etheric body not only provides the physical body with life, but is also the tableau in which memory is written. That is why the etheric body is called the 'Water of Life' in the bible, and why the angels are called the 'Sons of Life' in various mystery traditions. It is also why angels are known to be the holders of the 'memory' of our past doings - in other words, why they are considered to be the Guardian Angels of human beings.

We see these two qualities of the etheric body illustrated in the various mystery traditions as: the water of Lethe and Eunoe (the draught of remembrance and forgetfulness); the Egyptian river on which travels the boat of Isis or the soul; and the Nepenthe given to Isolde which allows her to forget her duty to marry Mark so that she can fall in love with Tristan.

The Second Holy Night, in the earthly sense, is connected to the two Johns in the bible: John the Baptist and John the Divine, the writer of the Gospel of John and Revelations.

Why is this so?

The sign of the Waterman is cosmically connected to the Moon sphere and represents both the angel and the spiritualised human soul which is filled with the spirit or Manas, enabling it to have imagination as a form of higher perception or Moral Cognition. 

John the Baptist was the representative of this stage in human development. He received a special initiation in which he experienced the Sun at Midnight from the constellation of Waterman, the constellation ruled by the moon, and for this reason he was able to baptise with water to loosen the etheric bodies of those whom he baptised.

The second John, John the Divine, is always represented by the Eagle and is connected to the higher ego, the lower Ego is the Scorpion represented by Judas. The higher ego or spiritualised intellect can create the right conditions in the soul for  a unification of the soul with the spirit from the realm of Waterman - this is called the Consciousness Soul. That is why he was never baptised by John the Baptist and had to wait for Christ to baptise him with Fire.

So we have two Johns - John the Baptist - Waterman and John the Divine - Eagle who are the earthly 'Guardians' of the second Holy Night. 

What about the Cosmic descent of Christ we spoke of yesterday?

From a Cosmic perspective this Holy Night is also a depiction of Christ's Descent from the Spirit of the Sun into, yes, the region of Scorpion/Eagle! That is, into the realm of the body of the Sun. This happens because the Sun Elohim who are the Gatekeepers of the Region of Scorpion Eagle enabled it. How did they do this? They united with  Jehova Elohim on the Moon. The consequence of this for human beings is depicted in the Bible when the 'breath of life' that is the Ego is given to Adam/Eve.

So on this Holy Night when we look up to the Constellation of Waterman, we should not only imagine  the human being's ascent from the darkness of matter to a 'perception' of the spirit, but we should also imagine the descent of Christ from the spirit of the sun, through the Zodiac gate of Scorpion Eagle to the body of the sun. 

This night is therefore the night in which we can draw close not only to our angels who guide us and shine the spirit downwards into our souls, but also to the two Biblical Johns who achieved ahead of time, what we are still striving to achieve. May we honour them.

The Twelve Holy Nights - Pisces/Fishes

The Twelve Holy Nights 

Two festivals stand at opposite poles at this time of the year: Christmas and Epiphany. They mark two births.  Christmas celebrates the birth of the Son of Man - Jesus, and Epiphany marks the birth of the Son of God - Christ. We could say that the twelve nights are those nights that fall between these two festivals and which  mark, on the one hand, an earthly path from Jesus to Christ, and on the other, a Cosmic path from Christ to Jesus. Two paths, one of a man towards Godhood and the other of a God towards manhood.

From Jesus to Christ:

The man's journey is a veiled one. We know something of the birth of Jesus but not much is written about his life thereafter. Why is that? Because it was far too complicated. Only recently, since the Renaissance,  have we developed a consciousness capable of understanding it.

In order to understand the path that Jesus took to become Christ we have to know that there were two Jesus children. The first being of the line of Solomon - I call this child Yeshua. Yeshua was a native of Bethlehem and his birth is depicted in the Matthew Gospel.

The second child, which I call Jesus, is the younger child from the lineage of Nathan and a native of Nazareth and his life is depicted in the Luke Gospel.

We know these are separate individuals because not only do Matthew and Luke give different genealogies in the bible, but the Matthew Jesus and the Luke Jesus are shown to have had different experiences: the Matthew child was born earlier, in the time of Herod and is visited by Magi and thereafter journeys to Egypt; while the Luke child is born at the time of Quireneus and the Census and travels to Bethlehem where he is visited by Shepherds and thereafter returns to live a quiet life in Nazareth.

Rudolf Steiner was the first modern human being to recognise this mystical fact and he has many lectures devoted to the understanding of this mystery.

The younger years in the live of the two Jesus children are similarly veiled, but we do know that the Luke Child unites with the Matthew child when the Luke child is twelve and the Matthew child is around 14. This mysterious unification occurs at the Temple in Jerusalem and is depicted in the Bible in that part where Mary loses her son and finds him speaking 'uncharacteristically' to the rabbis. This is because her quiet child is now united with the wise child who subsequently dies.

In his lectures entitled the Fifth Gospel, Rudolf Steiner gives an account of this mystery and the years that follow.

From Christ to Jesus:

The journey of  Christ through the spiritual world and His descent into a human being is also veiled.  There are various lectures in which Rudolf Steiner gives account of this journey - a journey that is sacrificial and encompasses the entire cosmos and various Zodiac constellations as he descends towards the earth and into the body Jesus of Nazareth.

During Christmas and Epiphany we celebrate Jesus' individual's outer journey in the physical world, the inner revolution occurring in the body and soul of a human being who is being prepared to accept a god into his body and soul, and paradoxically, a god's journey through the outer cosmos which is really a contraction of His heavenly nature and a sacrifice of His various exalted members through the regions of the 12 Zodiacs, in order that he might enter into the body of that prepared human being.

So, when we look at the twelve regions (the circle) of the Zodiac during those twelve Holy Nights we can find a memory of that momentous parallel path which forms a kind of cosmic ladder from human depths to spiritual heights and from spiritual heights to human depths - and for the man Jesus, it begins with the Zodiacal region of the Fishes.

    FISH/PISCES 
The first Holy Night

The path symbolised by the Fishes is the path taken by every human being who is born on earth. It is so because long ago it was taken by the first human beings who descended from the realm of the spirit to the earthly realm. They descended by  relinquishing their connection to the outer light of the spirit, in order that the unification with darkness might eventually teach them how to kindle, through their own efforts, the light within their own hearts.

This descent was experienced by the two Jesus children, who both entered into the womb of their respective mothers in order to be born into the darkness of matter - the physical world.

This descent was also experienced in a higher way, by the second Logos, the Son, who had much earlier journeyed from the heights of the Trinity into the realm of the zodiac and the Sphere of the Sun as a star. Thus was Christ born into the Spirit womb of the divine Sophia, the Sun as a star.

We can see how the two images are a wonderful unification of Christ with the realm of the Fishes and the realm of the Virgin which both stand at opposite positions in the starry sky.

In the future this unification will be a practical experience - a conscious one - undergone by the prepared human soul (Virgin/Fish) with the Spirit of Christ. This is what is mean by the Second Coming.

Within ourselves we have two fish - one swims upwards and the other downwards - one part of us is male, outward striving, individual, wise and fiery  like the Matthew Jesus, and the other part of us is feminine, inward gazing, communal, calm and loving like the Luke Jesus. The two must come together inwardly in the same way that outwardly the two Jesus'  children united in Jesus of Nazareth - if we are to find the inward and outward Christ.

It was understood in the age of the 'Twins', that is, in Persia, that the realm of the Fish and Virgin would one day unite to prepare two human beings (twins) so that they could make ready the womb for a God. For this reason the Fish has always been synonymous with Jesus Christ. He not only called Himself the 'fisher of men' but many of his disciples were 'Fishermen'. This knowledge was carried  in the soul of the early Christians who always associated Jesus Christ with the sign of the Fish until it was replaced by the Catholic Church with the sign of the black cross. On the other hand, the Vesica Pisces, the womb of the Fish, is the ancient symbol which signifies the birth of the spirit of Christ - Fish - into the womb of the soul.

John the Baptist was the initiator of the Fish initiate - Jesus. He initiated Jesus of Nazareth and facilitated the release of the Matthew Jesus from the Luke Jesus by Baptising Jesus of Nazareth with water. He could do this because he was an 'Aquarian' initiate, one who has been initiated from the region of the starry realms which was later called after him: Waterman. John the Baptist spoke of one who would come to Baptise not with water but with the Fire of the Holy Spirit. This is Christ.

So, when we look upwards to the realm of the Fish on this Holy Night, may we see what has been in the past as a sign of what is now happening within our souls so as to pave the way for what will be the experience of all men on earth - the birth of the child...the Christ within the human soul.

YESHUA AND JESUS - Excerpt from Fifth Gospel

THE two boys sat on the grass. The priestly child, Jesus, was only twelve springs and fair, for he was a Galilean of mixed blood. The older boy, Yeshua, was fourteen springs and from the lineage of kings, as a Judean of pure blood he was of darker of complexion.

Jesus played a plaintive song on his flute. At one moment, the song wafted downwards, over the ridge of the mountain, floating over the Nazirite township below with its rows and rows of houses scattered among figs and pomegranates and grape vines. At another moment the song soared upwards to the sun’s jewel whose gleaming fell over the world and came to rest on the squat fig tree beneath which they sat.

Before them plump, white sheep stood silent and obedient in the grass. From the wide spaces there came a sharp breeze, herb-scented and cool, carrying the sound of a flock of doves flapping their wings in time to the dying and becoming of the soul-full tune.

Yeshua was restless.

He held a stick in his hand. He made figures with it among the cyclamen and the anemones and in a moment he threw the stick away and fell to watching the rustling leaves of the small tree.

He told himself, I see all created things because they are; and they are because God sees them, and because God sees them, I see them in the world, and because they are perfect, I see them in my heart.

But this did not content him.

He looked beyond to where the clouds melted into the heavens. The flute’s song would have calmed him enough to make him fall to sleep except that a dream in the night still lingered in his heart and filled him with puzzlement and concern. Jesus would know its meaning but he was taken with his flute. Yeshua would have to wait, for he did not wish to interrupt him.

Years ago when Yeshua and his parents had arrived in Nazareth Jesus’ family had been the first to befriend them. Discovering a shared lineage had added to their kinship and soon the two households seemed to have no distinction between them. This meant that he and Jesus passed season after season in each other’s company and in time developed a particular understanding between them.

From the beginning, the Essene teachers had singled them out from the other village boys and had sent for the Chazzan, the officer from the synagogue to come and instruct them. The Chazzan had schooled them on the Torah and the Mishnah and had given them instruction on the unity of the Law and the Faith. But the teacher soon discovered that a great gulf divided the two of them. Yeshua loved reading, singing and praying. The rituals of the festivals, all that could be learnt from papyrus and from the word resounded in his soul and gave clarity to his mind. In truth, the older he became the more he felt one with the destiny and the trials of his people upon whom he knew lay the destiny of all peoples of the world. Yeshua understood that Jesus was different. He was not one for the things of the world. His mind could not take up the teachings that the rabbis prized so highly, for his mind was flown away with the song of birds or the flight of a butterfly or the angle of the sun as it fell on a leaf. There seemed to be no space in his memory for knowledge and his vision of the world seemed, to Yeshua, like a soft-spoken dream dusted with the pollen of heaven.

The rabbis were knowledgeable but they were not wise for they could not fathom his friend’s soul. They could not see his capacity for love with their hardened minds. They did not realise, therefore, how with one touch of his hand, one look from his far-seeing eyes, one word spoken soft and rounded from his lips, he could awaken truth and undo all manner of harm, illness and worry. They could not see it, and so they thought him ‘addled’, a child that could not be taught - they called him. And so it was they concentrated instead on Yeshua and let go their training of Jesus allowing him to spend his days as he would spend them, with his sheep, playing his flute song.

The flute song came to its end and the silence of afternoon invaded the empty spaces of the day. Yeshua looked at Jesus and Jesus in turn let his eyes – not blue nor green nor brown, but all three in equal measure – meet Yeshua’s dark ones.

Feeling like a boy and forgetting for a moment that he was more knowledgeable than the priests in their synagogues, he said, ‘I wonder what the sheep are thinking?’ 


Jesus wiped the spit from his flute and looked at it. ‘Sheep do not have thoughts, Yeshua!’ 


‘Maze!’ Yeshua said, surprised. ‘No thoughts?’ 


‘No.’ 
‘What do they feel?’ 


Jesus gazed out at the sheep, measuring, or so it seemed to Yeshua, what lived in them. ‘They long for warmer days and greener grass...also...’ His face lit up in a smile. ‘They do not have sympathy for the goats...’

Yeshua smiled himself at the thought of it. ‘They do not like the goats?’

‘The goats annoy them and they smell bad.’

Yeshua laughed. ‘Yes, they smell bad and they are stupid!’ He turned to look at Jesus. ‘You are right! What am I thinking then, what do you see in my head?’

Jesus’ gaze touched Yeshua. ‘Your thoughts are too complicated for my reckoning,’ he told him. ‘They are knotted up, one with the other, and made of sharp corners.’

‘Well...if they are made of sharp corners...' Yeshua threw a clump of grass at Jesus. ‘How can they be knotted? Knots are rounded!’

More grass was thrown and soon the two boys were covered in green and dirt and laughing like anything.

They fell on their backs then and Jesus turned over on his belly, contented, cupping his chin with his hands.

Yeshua looked to the leaves on the tree again, chewing on a blade of grass. ‘Last night I dreamt I was an eagle,’ he said.

Jesus looked at him, ‘How high did you fly?’

Yeshua threw him a speck of a glance. ‘I flew so high that I reached the sun, that’s how high!  After that something strange happened.’

‘What?’

‘The sun turned into a beautiful woman, who stood on the moon and wore a crown of stars. She told me her name was wisdom and she showed me things in a deep well: strange things, terrible wars, fearful sights! She told me it was the future and that it would be grave but that I would perform a task that would save the world, but first I had to remember something, and then I had to forget it again! But I can’t remember what I had to forget!’

‘That is because you have forgotten it!’

‘That is true!’ he said, with a sigh.

‘What happened after that?’

‘The woman moved her hand over the well and showed me something more...she showed me an image of you.’

‘Me?’ Jesus turned his head all smiles and frowns at him. ‘What was I doing?’

‘You were climbing steps, carrying something on your back...when I looked closer, I could see that it was me you were carrying, and that I was heavy. And you told me that I would be light if I let go of my treasures...that I would find them again, but that for now they were heavy. When finally I threw off all that I possessed I was light, like pollen in the wind! I knew that from that time there would be no need for words between us.’ He looked at Jesus, ‘I do not know what it means, this dream!’

Jesus nodded, thoughtful. ‘This is a difficult dream.’

Yeshua sat up to look at the heart-form of his friend’s face and the wide set eyes full of colours, ‘Not for you! You always know what my dreams mean!’

Jesus shrugged his shoulders.

‘Will you not tell me?’

‘Perhaps, you know too much already?’ Jesus teased.

Yeshua let his gaze roam over the sheep and the long view of the world, ‘I always tell you what I know!’

‘Yes.’ Jesus frowned. ‘You know many things.’

‘Come...brothers tell each other everything!’

‘We are not brothers, Yeshua,’ Jesus corrected him resting his head on the crook of his arm.

Yeshua scowled, feeling querulous. ‘Why not?’

‘Jacob and Simon and Jude and Jose...they hide behind corners to throw stones at me, they do this because they love you, because they are your brothers, not I.’

Yeshua felt the blood rise in his face. His brothers were mean spirited and ignorant. ‘If I could swap them for you - I would do it a thousand times over!’ he said.

‘That is why they throw stones,’ Jesus pointed out, with a simple clarity that cut at the roots of Yeshua’s anger.

There was a long thoughtful moment and something occurred to Yeshua. ‘Where is your knife...the one you carry for cutting rope? Come...give it to me.’

Jesus hesitated. ‘It is sharp, I am told never to take it from its sheath unless I have to.’

‘The sharper the better...come on...I’ll show you.’ He gestured full of impatience.

Jesus complied, but with caution. Yeshua took it and in a moment had made a cut in the palm of one hand.

Jesus grew alarmed to see blood, but Yeshua ignored it, and said to him, ‘Do you remember how the rabbis taught us that the body of a man, his flesh, Tzelem, is the image of God, and that his blood is Demut, the likeness of God. Do you remember? This blood is the likeness of God because in it flows the soul. Look at it! Don’t be afraid!’ He showed him his bloodied palm. ‘This is my soul you are looking at...now give me your hand.’

Jesus sat up and made a weak smile of hesitation. ‘Come Jesus, don’t you trust me?’

‘I trust you!’

‘Then give me your hand!’ Jesus put out his palm and winced. ‘The knife is sharp, it will not hurt.’ Yeshua made a swift cut and the boy stared at the blood now flowing from the wound with appreciation. ‘It did not hurt!’ he said amazed. ‘Your blood,’ Yeshua told him with a serious voice, ‘is also Demut, the likeness of God...Now, when I bring my blood, my soul, together with your blood, your soul, like this...’ He joined his hand to Jesus’ hand in a clasp and held it firmly. ‘It means that we are the same. Do you understand? We share the same likeness of God in our bodies. This means more than just brothers in the blood of Abraham, Jesus! Even though I share in the same blood with my brothers, my soul is not in Jacob, nor is it in Jude, or Simon or Jose, and theirs is not in me. But you and I, we are one now, and this means they can never come between us. Do you know what else, Jesus?’

‘What else?’

‘It means that if I die, my soul will still live in you...because we now share the same likeness of God, the same soul.’

They let go.

Jesus’ eyes grew soft and distant, and he seemed to be fitting this idea to his mind as he nursed his wound. Yeshua wiped the blood away from his hand and watched it ooze from the cut and spread into every crevice and line. He sucked the wound and said, 


‘Now you must tell me the meaning of my dream, because we are brothers.’

Jesus looked at him with a blank face. ‘I would tell you, because we are brothers, Yeshua, but in becoming brothers the meaning has winged away from my mind!’

Yeshua sighed and rolled over on his back again. ‘You goose! You have lost too much blood!’

The freshening breeze came and Yeshua felt a strangeness creep over him. He turned his eyes to the old road, and saw a caravan making its slow way in the valley. ‘I feel something will soon change, Jesus. Perhaps this is the meaning of the dream? It may happen when we go to Jerusalem, to celebrate our coming of age ceremonies...Do you know the first thing that I shall do in Jerusalem?’

Jesus took up his flute. ‘What will you do in Jerusalem?’

‘I will go to the priests and I will ask them why they shed the blood of sheep and goats and doves, and why they burn them for sacrifices, when Isaiah and David tell us we must not bring burnt offerings to God...’

Jesus began to play and Yeshua was not surprised, for talk of cruel things, of priests and temples and kings, never entered into his knowing. They were like the breezes that moved over this ridge on which they sat. They did not go deep, but brushed past and moved on towards other mountains, and other boys sitting with their sheep.

Yeshua watched the shivering leaves. ‘I think we shall be awakened at the Temple to something new, you and I.’

Jesus paused. ‘When our eyes open, because we are one, shall you see through mine and I through yours?’

These words made an impression on Yeshua. All day his dream had made him feel something in his heart and now that something sat on the lip of his mind, perched just so - near enough for him to taste, but too far from his reach to be grasped. It was tantalising and frustrating, this remembering, and he was so taken with it that he barely noticed Jesus begin to play another tune. And in this way they remained for a time, listening to God in the wind that carried the spring-song, God in the bleating of the sheep and in the chewing of the goats, until the sun began to fall towards the mountains and from below there came the sound of a woman’s voice, calling them for dinner.

They stood together then, as one, and descended the hill to their homes, arms over shoulders.

They spoke no more of their newly won brotherhood, or of the future that awaited them.