Introduction to The Symbolic Language of Astrology - by John Hayes
While Dane Rudhyar may be regarded as one of the great astrologers of the 20th Century, his prose style and the richness of his imagination make his work a labor of love for the converted, and a labor for the busy modern astrologer. Therefore I’ve taken the liberty of outlining one of the major themes, The Key to Astrological Symbolism, put forward by Rudhyar in his Classic work The Astrology of Personality. I hope that this stimulates interest in his work amongst astrologers who haven’t yet taken the plunge.
(1) Orbital Revolution – the Earth circles around the Sun and
(2) Axial Rotation – the Earth rotates around its axis.
Orbital Revolution and Axial Rotation give us a dualism of life-direction, a dualism of individual and collective.
The Collective
Family, race, nationality, class, religious group, club, trade union, your occupation, your corporation etc. The individual may help to create or transform these groups but they also act upon the individual, by imposing their standards, directly and indirectly.
1. Astrology of the Collective
Orbital Revolution is “objective motion,” as it brings about change in location. Through motion in space, through actual displacement of one’s centre, one relates oneself to others; one gains objective experiences of others and becomes aware of the reality of the larger group of which one is but a part.
2.Astrology of the Individual
Axial Rotation represents “subjective motion”, as it does not create any change of location. It is motion within the individual; interior or subjective. It represents inner changes. Values, which deal with the individual, are referred symbolically to the axial rotation of the Earth and the astrological factors created thereby, mainly the circle of houses and its two axes.
The signature of an individual is usually not legal unless it contains the individual first name and the family (collective) name.
Axial rotation – gives us the exact stage of the daily rotation of the earth around its axis and thereby the circle of houses.
The Degree
The degree represents a synthesis of the two motions of axial rotation (individual) and orbital revolution (collective). The Degree can be considered to reveal the creative element, the element of significance.
We see that the degree is the space covered by the earth in its orbital revolution while it effects a complete axial rotation. The degree is thus the projection in space of the time-unit, the day. In the degree time-value and space-value are integrated, and the two motions of the Earth are combined.
Every complete axial rotation distributes all over the Earth some phase of the Life-Function related to the zodiacal sign in which this particular rotation occurs. Because the Earth moves on its orbit while rotating around its axis, there can only be a limited number of axial rotations within the yearly revolution around the Sun. Each rotation generates thus, orbitally, a Degree.
The Degree partakes thus of two natures. It is an orbital element conditioned by axial rotation. It must stand therefore for that factor in life which “reconciles the opposites”.
A “day” can be considered a basis cycle of being.
The degree is conditioned by the axial rotation of the Earth; the Degree is part of the zodiac.
If there are over 365 days in the year, why only 360 degrees?
There is always in Nature a value of indeterminacy where two fundamental polarities are to be interpreted in terms of each other. We cannot measure one set of values by a unit belonging to another set of values. There is in any collectivity an increment of growth, a plus: a mysterious quantity. Life is not as mathematical, logical or rational as we may think.
The “more” represents the "coefficient of indeterminacy" in all integrative processes.
In another sense, the extra days mean also that the earth’s orbit is not perfect nor the Earth’s pace steady. No actual life is ever absolutely and rigidly true to the pattern offered by the birth-chart; no group of prognostications can ever be absolutely accurate. Somewhere, at some time, some discrepancy will always occur. Otherwise the universe would already have reached a point of static perfection. The fact life is, is the surest indication that spirit and matter, significance and form, can never be perfectly adjusted or perfectly reconciled.
Rudhyar, Dane. The Astrology of Personality (Santa Fe, NM: Aurora 1991).
by Jon Hayes
John can be contacted via his website at www.johnhayes.biz