The Ninth Holy Night - Crab/Cancer

CRAB/CANCER

The region of Crab or Cancer is connected with the hierarchy of the Cherubim in Christian Mysticism, or Spirits of Harmony in Spiritual Science. The symbol of the crab is the vortex, which expresses the harmonious transition between one cycle and the next. All transitions on all planes of existence are led by the Cherubim. We see their harmonious influence in the great transitions of world evolution from Saturn to Earth. We see it also in  those smaller transitions (led by the lower hierarchies inspired by the Cherubim): the great epochs of the earth - Polarian, Hyperborean etc; the cultural epochs - Indian, Persian, Egyptian etc;  and the four seasons of the year.  They are responsible for taking up the plans of the Seraphim, who are like the architects of the gods, and initiating an impulse towards a manifestation which is then worked on further by the Thrones who bring the plans to fulfilment. It was the task of the Cherubim to create the circle of the Zodiac on old Sun as a protective sheath. So it is for this reason that they have a deep connection with the thorax in the human being, that is, the rib cage and the twelve pairs of ribs that protect the heart. On old Sun the Cherubim were the highest beings taking part in its evolution and the Archangels were the lowest beings. The Cherubim created the protective sheath while the Archangels imbibed the wisdom of the Kyriotetes and from it created the light of the Sun. 

When Christ entered into the realm of the Zodiacs through the Gate of Ram the way for his descent to the Sun as a star had been prepared by the Cherubim. 

John the Baptist was born under the sign of the Crab and he connects the Zodiac region of Crab with the Region of Waterman, the region of the angels from which he observed the Sun at midnight. Because of this John the Baptist was able to connect the Cherubim with the sphere of the angels and the angel of Buddha in particular, who became his 'inspirer. 

Like the Cherubim John the Baptist prepared the way for the descent of Christ. 

In previous lives he had been Elijah and before that Adam, the first earthly man. The story of the fall speaks of the separation of Adam from Eve after Jehova breathed the provisional Ego into their lungs. Thereafter there was an 'expulsion' from Paradise, that is, the human being was cut off from consciousness of the realm of the Father God, the realm beyond the Zodiac, and the way to this consciousness was barred by the Cherub with the flaming sword.  The Cherub with the flaming sword is an imagination of the voice of Conscience, which proceeds in its highest aspect from the realm of the Cherubim. The Consciousness of the 'impulses of our will' that is, Conscience,  was a necessary requirement for an understanding of Christ.  In the wilderness of the soul the voice of conscience speaks, like the 'voice of God' - Repent and make ready the way of the Lord! - and proclaims the coming of the Lord of the Soul - the highest expression of the Ego - Kyrios - the Higher Self.

India stood under the sign of Cancer/Crab and it was Buddha who prepared the way for Conscience to arise in the world. Many of John the Baptist's sermons were a reflection of the Sermon at Benares because the angel of Buddha was inspiring him. Moreover, it was John the Baptist's heightened sense of Conscience that enabled him to be the first to meet Christ on earth and to recognise the vessel that would be placed at his disposal - Jesus of Nazareth. John the Baptist points to Christ as the Lamb of God and connects Him with the Sphere of the Ram - that Zodiac through which He entered into the realm of the Spirit of the Sun. When John the Baptist sees Jesus of Nazareth he also recognises the pre-fall nature of the Nathan Soul which was once united with him before it was separated out and sent to the sun-sphere so that it might unite with Christ in His descent to earth.

Interestingly after John the Baptist's death he remained hovering over the circle of the 12 disciples around Christ Jesus,  as a reflection of the work of the Cherubim in creating the Zodiac as  a protection for old Sun evolution and the Thorax as the protection of the inner sun of the heart.

The Sixth Cultural Epoch of earth evolution will be the Age of Waterman or Aquarius. At this time Jeshu ben Pandira will return again as the Maitreya Buddha, who will be the preparer of the consciousness of human beings for the Etheric Christ, just as John the Baptist was the preparer of the consciousness of human beings for the physical Christ. He will not only speak of morality but he will teach morality - or conscience. The Age of the Consciousness Soul is a preparation for this because ego consciousness in the entire soul requires a lighting up of thought in the will. This is an ability to understand the intentions behind actions - Moral Cognition - or a thinking with the heart, which is the seat of the will. 

At the end of earth evolution when both sun and moon have united with the earth and it has become spiritualised in the fiery furnace of sacrificial Vulcan, the earth will turn inside out, that is, what was once at the centre will form a new Zodiac at the periphery, taking the work of the Cherubim in the human heart to a new stage - a stage where conscience is transformed into love.

 So on this ninth night, when we turn our consciousness to the realm of the Crab may we discern there the connection between this Zodiac and the realm of the Cherubim who created the entire circle of Zodiacs on Old Sun. May we see the Ram as the highest Zodiac which formed the first gate through which Christ entered the sphere of the Sun on his descent to earth, and  may we see the connection of the Cherubim to the Archangels who had their Ego consciousness on old sun and now live in the etheric body of human beings and who belong to the region of the Goat, which formed the last gate through which Christ descended to the earth.  On earth may we see the connection between the Cherubim and John the Baptist who recognised Jesus and who prepared the way for a consciousness of the physical Christ and the Maitreya Buddha who in the age of Waterman will prepare the consciousness of human beings for the Etheric Christ.

May we hear the voice of conscience in our hearts as an imaginative inspiration from the realm of the Cherubim  and may it engender in us a fiery love for the good action.

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.