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The Wesak Festival
subtle meanings of the Full Moon in Scorpio 2005

Malvin Artley reveals the subtle meanings inherent in the Full Moon in Scorpio, which is also the Wesak Festival, the most important festival in the Buddhist calendar. This, the Taurus Full Moon (due to the fact that the Full Moon always falls in the sign opposite the sign in which the Sun is found) is also a Lunar Eclipse. In some ways this appears to be an "Annus Horribilis", but in others this year presents outstanding opportunities for inner growth. Perhaps it could be an "Annus Mirabilis"...

It was a quiet flight back from the US on a clear and crisp night out of San Francisco. We had just been served dinner and my mind was still buzzing over the events of my trip just ended. The world had lost a beloved Pope. I had just attended and presented at a conference that was in marked contrast to the gatherings of that group in the past.* I had made many new contacts and future friends. I had renewed contacts from over a decade of absence from that group. Though the world clattered on at its seemingly usual pace, it felt to me as though some new benchmarks had been put in place in the recesses of the human psyche. The Aries full moon just passed had been a strong one and the mark of transformation and new order was in some way its legacy.

But the one thing that stood out for me above all else in this period was that the heart of humanity had been touched in a big way and that the recent history of war and insecurity that has been the staple diet of the media in the past few years had been altered—if only initially—in favor of a more hopeful view of life. The throngs of people that flocked to Rome to wish the Pontiff well on his journey of greater service to God and humanity showed the power of love to move the human heart in a way that no other force can. Pope John Paul II will be missed and remembered as one of our recent Great Souls—and his will be a hard act to follow. Sleep was the order of the day now for me, though, and as scenes from Lemony Snicket danced across the movie screen, the Moon stood as a silent signpost and guide as the plane bore us swiftly westward to the shores of the wide brown land of Oz and home.

A Beacon of Hope

As we are now in the highest point of the spiritual year and the most powerful point of that year, it would pay us to reflect a bit on the life of John Paul II—not so much from the standpoint of the events of his life or his overall character, but from what Taurus represents to humanity and how much he exemplified that sort of life to us in many ways, especially because he was a Taurean. But, first we need to look a bit at Taurus as a sign and what it means to humanity.

Taurus bestows “The penetrating Light of the Path”, and John Paul II's life was certainly a beacon of hope and an example to many millions of people. In true Taurean fashion he faced down and moved through many obstacles to the filler expression of the Love of the Christ on the greater world stage. He lit the way for his followers, and the Light of his Soul penetrated deeply into and started to dissolve many of the prejudices, bigotries, hardened attitudes and national/religious divisions that are the legacies of centuries of war and religious short-sightedness. Hardly the “bull in the China shop” type, though, he showed a grace that only an old Soul can bring to bear on situations, and-though many astrologers would hardly address the point-he showed, through the quintile patterns in his chart, a true artistry in what he did and a genius for creative diplomacy that is but yet another example of the power those aspects can bring to the individual who knows how to properly use them.

The Third Creative Hierarchy

In past Wesak articles I have focused upon the planets that rule Taurus (Venus and Vulcan). Here we need to take a look at the group of Lives upon which the psychology of the Taurean type is based. I refer to the 3rd Creative Hierarchy—the Lives that express the quality of “Light through Knowledge”. In a curious sort of way this is a group of Lives that blends the qualities of desire and scientific mind. Esotericists will recognize the combination of desire and mind as kama-manas in strictly human terms. Indeed, this idea of “desire-mind” is the primary battlefield through which Taurean natives must pass and over which they must triumph. But, the blending to which I am referring in relation to this particular Hierarchy is, naturally, much more than desire-mind and refers to states of being far beyond human comprehension, for the Lives of this Hierarchy passed beyond human evolution many eons of time ago and are now tied up with the very life of the Lord of our entire solar system. They equate to a group of angelic Beings that are known in canonical terms as “The Thrones”, whose task it is to “fulfill the divine justice of the Lord”. They are known to be some of the most powerful of the angelic host, and they are said to ponder over the disposition of divine judgments. There are a lot of clues to Taurus in general and to the true actions of Venus and Vulcan in relation to Taurus in the preceding statements, and we will proceed to unravel some of these in due course. But, also in this, we see many indicators as to the life of any Taurean type and to the expression of John Paul II in particular.

Taurus is said to rule over this 3rd Hierarchy and that Hierarchy functions on the 5th sublevel of the cosmic astral plane. It is important to note that the number 5 in numerology always carries with it the idea of mentation and, more importantly, fixation. There is a great Law within our particular solar system called The Law of Fixation, and it governs on the mental plane and upon all 5th subplanes of each of the major planes. The word “plane” is probably not the most accurate term to use when describing states or dimensions of being. The words “density” and/or “dimension” probably come closer to describing the matter. As such, though, each plane or density of existence is governed by its respective all-pervading Law that governs both the material aspect of that plane and also its psyche.

The Law of Fixation

We should realize, too, that every plane is ensouled by a great angelic Life—the Lord of that plane—and thus each plane is, in effect, the body of manifestation for its respective great Angel, no matter how dense or rarified is the material nature of that plane. So, the Law of Fixation governs both the mental plane that we know as humanity and also the plane which is the expression of the 3rd Creative Hierarchy. I know these matters will mean little to some readers, but in coming to understand the concepts of fixation and also of five-ness, we can go a long way in understanding the basic causality and consciousness of the Taurean type and also one of the great Orders of the Heavenly Host about which very little has been written. Even more than that, we come to understand that mysterious construct of nature that is the human mind in its three compartments (lower/concrete, higher/causal and abstract).

What do we mean when we talk about fixation in relation to the mental plane or regarding the mind in general? The term fixation is chosen in relation to this Law for two reasons. Firstly, as a person thinks, so their desires and acts evolve. Thus results a person's future. In this way a person's karma is fixed or set. Basically, every person shapes their destiny by the way in which they think. That process links every human being with the greater archetypes because every human being is a concept in process of manifesting, as seen from an abstract perspective. The moment of conception (which marks the birth of the mental body) fixes the inner dynamic of the personal life. It sets the genetic heritage. It commences and governs the period of gestation. And, it maps the blueprint of any person's life. It does not, however, map physical events. Rather, it maps out the causative thoughts that eventually lead one to experience the outer events in life.

In short, the conception chart is a map of the way in which the reasoning mind for any person works. It takes the mind—however great or feeble—to make human manifestation possible on the outer planes. Conception denotes a fixed pattern (blueprint) around which the entire personal life evolves. All other personal charts from that point onward are derived from it. The conception chart also says a lot about the immediate past lives that one has just lived, because one's present life is a resultant of past acts (karma), and it is said that one's present life is a continuation of the life just left. We are told as well that the time for this sort of astrology lies in the future for humanity, although some good approximations—if not the true charts—can be made at the present point in our history.

Thoughts are Things

Secondly, fixation is used regarding the mind to describe the process whereby the lower nature is stabilized. The mind is ultimately the way in which the wild swings of the desire nature are moderated. Desires are largely settled through the steady application of the mind toward coherent processes of thought and through the construction of steady and viable thought-forms. Thoughts are things, after all. Though they may seem ethereal to us on this plane, thoughts on their own plane are as real and tangible as is life in any dimension or density. So, fixation is the law whereby the entire persona is actually guided and built over the many lifetimes we experience.

Through all of our lives we gain in quality. As we raise our vibration, so are the higher qualities (virtues) built into the causal body-the body of the Soul. Our personal lives can be compared to the process of sculpture. We start out like a block of rough granite, with the Soul as the Sculptor gradually removing all that is not needed and slowly shaping that rough block into something that is eventually quite beautiful to behold. The sculptor is the Vulcan side of Taurus. The tools of its trade are forged through the steady application of the fires to the lower life via the fields of experience. Those ever-increasingly refined tools can then be used to hammer out forms that are suitable to be used in the temple of God that is our personal life-those bodies/forms eventually becoming the throne of the higher Self. The beauty of the form nature is the Venus side of Taurus, with the persona eventually becoming something akin to a Venus de Milo or a David in our example with regard to its beauty and the perfection of its form.

Malvin continues his discussion of Wesak, especially the esoteric features of Taurus in part two of this article.

Click to read part two of The Wesak Festival