The Good, the Pious, and the Just are born
When first Aquarius pours out his Urn.
(Manilius)
With the weakening of the Kali Yuga energies, and the new ones becoming stronger and stronger, Aquarius is the ideal towards which humanity is moving.
The water glyph of Aquarius ♒ is thought to hark back to Atlantean times and was followed by the simple emblem of a water jar. This seems to have illustrated the repeated process whereby the ego (lower self) passed through life after life, drinking the turbid waters of the world.
But with the increased manifestation of spiritual man, the emblem shifted its emphasis from the water jar to the being that bore it, and the design took on the symbolic embellishments that we are familiar with today. Like the Hindu bhisti who walks the town prepared to quench one’s thirst, the Water-Bearer is shown with a vase that overflows with waters which nurture the lower consciousness.
If, after countless lives of drinking the turbulent waters of the sidereal cup, the lower self comes to know and refuse the draught of Lethe (forgetfulness), its gains may still be inadequate to retain the waters of Reminiscence, gathered in golden moments, in the drab contexts of everyday life. Hence the poignant story of the ‘leaky jar’ in Plato’s Gorgias.
By contrast, the rare ego, gifted with the power of unerring choice, may turn to the Supernal Vase and partake of the nectar of the gods, the living water of the fabled Holy Grail. At a climactic point in its pilgrimage, it may lave in ‘the Elixir of Life,’ the waters of immortality. When this moment is reached by that ego, the highest spiritual source can flood the entire being, conferring boundless benefit to the whole of humanity.
The lessons of Capricorn must be learned well before the ego is ready to blossom fully in Aquarius. Capricorn, an earth sign, is the sign in which is inaugurated a new cycle of effort, where great endurance is developed through the fight to emerge triumphant in the tests of life. Capricorn symbolizes a solidly independent, rock-like stance.
The sacred alchemical phenomenon of self-transmutation is powerfully symbolized in a vision experienced by a gifted seer. In this vision there were two vases linked together with a golden chain. The upper vase was beautifully sculpted of translucent amber and filled with a shimmering liquid. The lower vase was fashioned of crude earthenware and contained dark, muddy water.
A hand appeared and gently tilted the amber vase, allowing its luminous contents to pour gently into the clay jug below. The waters mingled and wherever the shimmering liquid fell, the dark fluid seethed and boiled. Bubbles rose and burst upon the surface in many colours, while the murky waters slowly began to change.
Gradually, with steadily altering aspect, the waters became as clear and pellucid as the contents of the amber vessel. The unification of the Higher and Lower Self had been brought to a final and irreversible consummation. Thoth-Hermes succeeds in reconciling Horus and Set in that age yet fully to emerge – when the transmutation of the lower by the higher is universally possible.
