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Bob Makransky
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The Lunar Rhythm Spirits: All early calendars were lunar, and have now been replaced by a
solar calendar. This is highly symbolic. The fact is that the human race
in its infancy was matriarchal – the female principle always precedes the male.
When the human race invented agriculture and began to stabilize waking
consciousness, it also passed its baton to the males. Heretofore the
males hadn’t done much of the work of keeping society glued together.
What little “thinking” was being done was being done by the women. The culture
– in the sense of religion, science, technology, crafts, literature, etc. – was
in the hands of the women, who handed it all over to the men at the time
agriculture was invented. The calendar was originally invented by the women who made it
lunar because it was precisely the ebb and flow of lunar rhythms that they were
trying to track. You only need a solar calendar when you’re doing
agriculture because the work you do revolves around the seasons. And although
hunting and gathering were also seasonal (depending on what game and plants
were available in what season), this wasn’t so much a part of primitive
peoples’ existence. They were vaguely aware of the yearly cycle, but didn’t
think in those terms much because they had no need to plan much of anything. So why have a calendar at all, you might ask, much less a lunar
one? The reason for this is because in those days, when women still ran
the show, the human race was tuned in to certain vibrations, or laws of nature,
which ebbed and flowed with the lunar cycle, just as agriculture revolves
around the yearly cycle. That is, there are certain wavelengths of
knowledge, or techniques for accomplishing things such as healing,
music-making, hunting, fishing, gathering, weaving, love-making, etc. which
oscillate on a lunar rhythm. Humankind has almost completely lost all of
this knowledge; it survives in schemes of planting, etc. by the
moon. All of these schemes are valid even if they apparently contradict,
such as Europeans planting on a waxing moon near full, and Mayans planting just
past new moon. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that the moon’s phase
be taken into account consistently, to hook onto the body of memory that exists
“out there”. Indeed, to live one’s life according to the moon, using the rules
in any astrological rule book (good times to set eggs, make jellies, cut hair,
prune trees, etc. etc.) would put one in touch with some of the profoundest
rhythms underlying human existence. This is why the Hasidic Jews find so much
joy in what seems to most people a sterile, repetitive existence. They
are tuning into that feminine rhythm of joy in repetition, in dancing to the
beat of the cosmos. The reason why the Hasids find the sabbath so joyous
isn’t because they get a respite from their labors, but because they tune in to
the lunar rhythm of the universe. The Hasids use a lunar calendar, as do the
Moslems, and that is why they are so vigorous (which their effete,
solar-calendar critics see as “fanatical”). The lunar calendar developed at different times and in different
places. Depending upon the sophistication of the particular society, it
may only have consisted of a 28 or 29 day calendar (i.e. 29 day names) repeated
endlessly; or it may have been tied to the solar calendar with intercalary
days. It began to be noticed that certain feelings or intents repeated
(or better said, could be made to repeat) at certain predictable intervals
according to the moon’s phase; or in other words, that you could know what to
do at a given time by observing the moon’s phase in the sky, rather than just
feel what to do directly using your own intuition. You could use the moon’s
phase as a shorthand record or mnemonic device for the feeling or intent. It isn’t
really an inductive process – it isn’t that they observed that seeds planted on
the waxing moon outperformed seeds planted on the waning moon; rather, they
identified the intent of So the lunar calendar is primordial – it existed in hunting times
in differing degrees of sophistication. It was the invention of
agriculture which brought about the solar calendar. This symbolic act made
humankind a “waking” or thinking species, which acted on mind and reason rather
than on intuition and feeling. The trouble is that in switching calendars
(modes of operating) the male civilization also lost a lot of the sheer joy
which undergirded the female civilization which preceded it. It was a very
joyous thing, which the males had to repress in order to stay awake and working
all day long. And it is most definitely and literally tied to the lunar
calendar. So, if one wants to get back to feeling as joyous as ancient
people did, as light and in tune with one’s environment as primordial humans
were, then one must quit using the solar calendar and start using a lunar
calendar (not that there aren’t other ways of doing this; but switching
calendars is one way). Just start by using a lunar calendar, whether Jewish or Moslem or
Chinese or whatever. Observe a seven day weekly cycle of activity with a 28 day
month. The week as a unit of measure is a survival from this early
Goddess religion calendar. Seven and Four are the two basic lunar numbers. Do
the same things on the same days each week. Plan monthly activities by lunar
phase. Schedule activities for e.g. the “second Tuesday” each month.
You’ll see a real difference in your feelings about yourself and the world, in
particular your sense of belonging to the universe – your sense that the universe
is nourishing and sustaining you – if you plan your activities around the
moon’s phase and sign. Women should plan their lives around their
menstrual cycle and ritualize the time of menstruation (as the Hasids do). This
is just a way of making a feeling or intuitive connection with a different
channel of energy – a line of memory which is prior to the present “waking”
line of memory – a truly joyous way of living your life. Humankind has been putting most of its energy for the past ten thousand
years into developing mind (Mercury principle) at the expense of intuition
(lunar principle). It has been developing reason at the expense of joy.
And one way of getting back to the original feeling of joy is to tune into the
moon once again. How precisely one does this is irrelevant, so long as
one is putting energy into the project and is serious in one’s efforts to live
life by the lunar rhythm. The idea is to go wherever there is joy, and to
do whatever is joyous. We’re not trying to recapture the feeling of the
last few thousand years of hunting just prior to the invention of agriculture,
because that period was a bummer. We are not going back to a primeval state of
humanity just because it was a primeval state of humanity; but because there
was joy there. By living your life according to the moon, you’ll
automatically recapture a lot of this joy in your everyday life. You can make
what to other people would seem a sterile, boring routine into a fulfilling
life of joy, just by tying all your activities to the moon. All repetition is a manifestation of the principle of memory, symbolized
by the moon. When one uses repetition in prayer, or incantations, or
advertising, one is calling upon the power of memory to accomplish something in
the world “out there”. Symbolism is a way of tuning into a feeling, of
grabbing onto a certain intent. Memory is at the basis of all this –
i.e., it provides us with a way of making something which happened once happen
again. For example, what the cargo cultists in Melanesia were doing was
perfectly valid and correct. It’s the Europeans with their idiotic
rationalism who believe that speaking into radios will call airplanes to bring
them cargo. The natives (correctly) know that the radio is but a symbol,
a way of tuning in to the desire to call forth cargo. Bob: It works a lot better than the Melanesians talking into a cardboard
box. Spirits: Does it? Hasn’t modern civilization arrived in Melanesia? They
called for it with their cargo cults. Bob: So did a lot of other third world cultures without a cargo cult. Spirits: Look, you’re being difficult. And getting off the point. Bob: What’s the point? Spirits: That as Marc Edmund Jones said, symbolism is more powerful than
reality. It is more powerful because it is closer to the truth, and the truth
is that what you call “reality” is only a symbol. So to call for cargo with a
cardboard box is actually a more powerful and effective means of doing it than
using a radio. The only reason the radio seems to work better is because
you can get other Europeans to validate it. The radio, for example,
wouldn’t work to bring cargo for Melanesians any better than the cardboard box
would. The radio only serves to bring cargo when Europeans call for it. It has
less to do with the radio than with the agreement made between Europeans. They
agree that when a radio call for cargo comes in from another European, they’ll
send it. But not if a Melanesian calls in. Bob: What difference does it make how the cargo got there, as long as it
got there? If Spirits: Right, but it had nothing to do with the radio. You might
as well use a cardboard box. Bob: No, because a European can’t get cargo using a cardboard box – only
a radio. Spirits: He could if he believed he could – just part of the agreement
made between Europeans is that they’ll only receive telepathic messages which
come in the guise of radio messages (through that thought form). But Melanesians
aren’t held back by that restriction, so they can send and receive messages
through a cardboard box. Bob: But those messages aren’t fulfilled by the universe. Spirits: Yes they are, I tell you; you just don’t know what they’re
asking for with their cardboard boxes. I assure you, they are getting what they
ask for. Why else would they continue doing it? Do you think they’re
stupid? The logic of magic – of tuning in to the fundamental rhythms of the
universe – is very different from the logic of everyday life. What magicians are out for is power. That’s what they’re
getting with all their weird incantations and rituals. That doesn’t mean
worldly power. A magician doesn’t really want anything that the “real”
world offers, since he or she knows it’s all phony. What magicians want is
power, which is obtained by putting as much feeling, energy, and importance
behind something which is purely abstract and symbolical, as most people put
behind their quest for money, or glory in the world, or love from the opposite
sex. The power of symbolism doesn’t depend upon the particular
symbolism being used. Consider the power of the moon. To time the affairs
of your life according to the moon is to hook yourself into the lunar
rhythm. Whether you plant on the waxing or waning moon; or whether you go
by tropical or sidereal signs, is of no importance. It doesn’t matter which
system you use, as long as you use one system consistently. This is what
makes the rationalist astrologers tear their hair out: they cannot reconcile
these “blatant contradictions” – that two competing systems could both be
correct. This is because they are only looking at appearances. Similarly, the attempts to show statistically that plants sown at
different times respond in such-and-such a fashion, are doomed to
failure. You don’t plant by the moon to grow a bigger, or heavier, or
even more nutritious (in the sense of what you’d find by analyzing the ash)
plant. You plant by the moon to grow a more joyous plant. Gardens that
are planted by the moon are more joyous, more vigorous, more alive than gardens
which aren’t planted by the moon; and that vigor is communicated to the people
who eat those plants. You don’t even have to garden organically: it isn’t
the chemicals which make supermarket produce unfit to eat; it’s the disrespect
with which those plants were treated (though the farmer who is respectful of
his plants is very circumspect in the kind and amount of chemicals he
uses). To treat a plant with respect means to consider what it would
like. It likes little nitrogen now and then, for example, which all
farmers know. But they don’t all know that it would also like to be
planted with a consciousness of the rhythms of the moon. The farmer, by
observing the rhythms of the moon, communicates a certain joy to his plants
which they give back to him when he eats them. He hooks his plants up to a
feeling (intent) of joy, even if he’s only doing the thing mechanically.
Agriculture is an intrinsically joyous occupation, which is why attunement to
the lunar rhythm has survived there longer than elsewhere in your culture.
Practically all farmers farm for the love of it, and are attuned to the
lunar rhythm of joy even if they’re not consciously planting by the moon, and
the rest of you are living off that love. Bob: Did ancient people hunt by the moon? Spirits: Not in the sense in which you’d think. Ancient people were just
attuned to the moon, period. They didn’t need ephemerides to tell them
when to do things: they could just feel it. For example, a hunter could just
sense that tonight would be a good night to fish, or to hunt a particular type
of game, or to visit other people and sing, or to just lay around. Modern
people haven’t completely lost this facility to sense what they really feel
like doing at any moment, but they tend to cut themselves off from this sense
with their schedules and busyness and “important” things which take precedence
in their minds over their feelings. You moderns are too far away from
your true feelings to be able to follow them now. You’re more comfortable
getting information out of books than through your own feelings. That’s okay –
that works too. All life on earth is attuned to the lunar rhythm, and the extent
to which people are or aren’t in tune with this rhythm is the extent to which
they are or aren’t in tune with the world around them. For example, the easiest
way to head off the impending environmental crisis would be to get everyone in
the world to switch back from a solar to a lunar calendar. Bob: What does the moon have to do with it? Spirits: The moon doesn’t have one single, solitary thing to do with it
whatsoever. There are no “rays” or discernible causality involved. The physical
moon is just a symbol for this rhythm, just as the sun is a symbol for
spirit. But both of these symbols are primordial – i.e. they meant what
they mean long before there were humans on the earth. The moon symbolizes one aspect of the Spirit, namely memory –
repetition. Repetition, or rhythm, is eternality. It’s just one aspect of the
Spirit. One can consider that the Spirit is made of light fibers, in
which case one is considering its solar aspect; or one can consider that it is
made up of vibrations or sounds, and that is its rhythmic or lunar aspect.
The lunar aspect is the joyous aspect – indeed, joy is rhythm, and rhythm is
joy. There are certain activities which are intrinsically lunar:
travel, sickness, prayer, lunacy – anything which means a vacation from, or a
pause in, the workaday (routine) world is intrinsically a lunar activity.
These activities especially should be regulated by the moon. New projects
and travel should commence on a new, waxing moon, during a lunar planetary
hour. Sickness should be treated by the moon – from the decumbiture, if
known, and if not just by observing which treatments should be carried out
under which phases and signs of the moon (which you can learn from books on
medical astrology). Sickness is indeed the only respite that some people allow
themselves from the driving urgency of everyday life -– the only way they allow
themselves to tune in to the lunar rhythm. But there are more joyous ways
of doing it than that; and in fact if it isn’t being done joyously, then
there’s no point in doing it at all. The way to tune in to the joyous lunar rhythm in your astrology is
to add lunar elements to your charts, even if you continue to use a solar-based
horoscope. The Hindus do this with their twenty-seven lunar mansions, but
you western astrologers can do it any way you like, e.g. with Ronald Davison’s
Draconic Zodiac, William Butler Yeats’ Great Wheel, lunar mansions, nodes,
critical degrees, or the Part of Fortune. It doesn’t even matter how you
compute these things – whether you use tropical or sidereal lunar mansions, or
which of the various possible formulas you use to compute the Part of
Fortune. All systems are valid as long as you do things the same way
consistently. What you are trying to do is to use the lunar technique to hook
up to an intent; and I assure you, that intent will bring you joy. (excerpted
from Bob Makransky’s book The Great Wheel) |