The Eleventh Holy Night - Bull/Taurus

BULL/TAURUS

In exploring this Zodiac of the Bull we now move from the sphere of the hierarchies to the region of the Holy Cosmic Spirit from which forces emanate towards the planets.

The Holy Spirit is also called the Lunar Logos because of its kinship to the Moon. This kinship was the result of an important task during Christ's descent towards the earth. The birth of the Sun Logos into the Body of the Sun was made possible by the Holy Spirit principle working into the sphere of the Moon through the communion of the entire circle of the 6 Elohim and Jehova as we have seen in previous posts. The Holy Spirit is connected, therefore, to the Moon Sphere by virtue of this union and the entire third hierarchy of angels, in particular their representatives the Archai.  It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit has a special connection to the Astral body of man or the soul, which was created on old Moon and its connection with the consciousness of the entire soul - the Consciousness Soul - or the 'Conscience Soul'.

We see this relationship between the Moon and the Sun through the Holy Spirit in the various cults of the Bull in Egypt and Sumeria. In Egypt the Egyptian Goddess Isis was the Goddess of the Moon, and her image arose out of the union of the Moon with the Sun, that is, of Sophia with Isis and through them, the union of the region of Virgo with the region of the Bull. This connection was depicted in various ways depending on what forces were prevalent at the time, for instance:

In the Third Cultural Epoch whenever the influence from the sphere of the Virgin was the more prevalent there arose the image of the Moon Goddess Isis, representing the Sun spirit, the Divine Sophia, the World-Soul, carrying her Sun-child Horus. Whenever the image of the Bull or the entire macrocosm prevailed in Egypt, Isis was seen with Cow Horns on her head - as an image of her representation of the World Spirit. Furthermore when, within these cow horns was  depicted the Solar disc, it signified the upward striving of the Spirit of the Bull from the Sphere of the Moon to the Sphere of the Sun or the region of Ram. This depicted an ascent from Holy Spirit to Christ, which signified a move from the Third Cultural Epoch, Egypt to the Fourth - Greco-Roman Epoch, when Christ would be born on earth.  The Luciferic principle which long ago had cut itself off from the Holy Spirit on Old Moon, did not choose to strive upwards to the Sun Sphere but chose to remain egoistically within the boundaries of the Moon Sphere. This is the picture of the Luciferic Holy Spirit that does not seek to find Christ and it is for this reason that in the Greco Roman era the Bull thereafter became the image of the Luciferic principle. 

We see this imaged forth in Roman times in the cult of Mithras, the god whose task was to slay the bull of passions and egoism, and in the time of Moses as the cult of the Golden Calf.

The Holy Spirit that emanates from the region of the Bull down into the Moon Sphere was seen at the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist through the agency of his angel in the form of a Dove. He saw this image of the dove because, interestingly, Rudolf Steiner tells us, the cow seen inspiratively, takes on the image of a dove since astrally the cow is like a bird. 

It is the Holy Spirit which, once again enables the birth of Christ into the Sun-Soul of the Nathan, in the being Jesus of Nazareth at the baptism in the Jordan. Christ is born, not only through the highest earthly representative of the region of the angels or Waterman - John the Baptist - but also through the co-operation of the Mary of the Matthew Gospel, the old  Eve through her unification with her sister soul Mary of the Luke Gospel. 

Mary was was once seen as Isis on her descent into the human soul and it is through this heavenly Isis/Mary that the Mother of God is united with the Divine Sophia, the World Soul itself. The birth of Christ is made possible, therefore, by a communion of heavenly and earthly representatives of the Sphere of the Bull and and Virgin - that is the spirit in the soul. Similarly, it is also the Holy Spirit from the region of the Bull that, in uniting with the sphere of Twins or Seraphim (represented by the sacrifice enacted by both Christ and the Zarathustra individuality at the baptism) that created the possibility for the birth of  the highest principle of Sacrificial love, Christ, on earth. Christ, the Sun Being was then able to walk the earth to speak of a love that is not connected by 'blood' kinship  a love that is free and connected only by 'spirit' kinship. He could do this through the agency of this region which rules the Larynx and speech (Bull) and the Spirit of Community (Twins).  It is for this reason that speech connects us with others in a loving marriage of souls. Rudolf Steiner even goes so far as to say that the Larynx will one day not only speak forth words, but will be a creative organ, a higher version of the organs of reproduction which are, at present, possessed by human beings. The larynx will offer itself up, chastely, to the Holy Lance of  Love - the Holy Spirit - in order to bring to 'birth' the spirit of Christ, not only in the soul, but within the soul of a 'community' and in the Soul of the earth, as a moral creative force. In this way The Bull also connects the realm of Twins with the realm of Goat, the realm of Archangels, in particular Michael who, as the highest Archangel of the Sun and the Countenance of Jehova, had a special relationship both to the Sun Logos and the Holy spirit  - the Word and Thought - that is, the Cosmic Intelligence of Christ.

At the Wedding of Cana we see this relationship between the Sophia the Holy Spirit and Christ, the Mother the Son and the water(Spirit) creating Good Will among a community of men and women not connected by blood, as a precursor to the Pentecostal experience of the Holy Spirit among the 12 disciples which created a new 'Christ Community' through the agency of the Spirit working in the Mother of God. This prefigures the community of the Sixth Epoch, the epoch of the Spirit, in which all will 'Think Speech' in the same spirit language.

So on this Holy Night when we gaze up at the region of the Bull (Thought), may we see the connection between it and the Holy Spirit, the Lunar Logos working particularly through the Moon Sphere of the angels to enable the birth of Christ (The Word) firstly into the body of the Sun and secondly into the body of the Sun-Soul Jesus of Nazareth. May we see how it once united with the Mother of God which was really the 'Vicarious' incarnation of the Sophia - the World Soul on earth, in order to make this possible, and how it united again with the Mother of God twice: at the Wedding at Cana and at the Pentecost in order to bring about a free 'common love' among men who are not blood kin.