--by Michael Welch

A cool wind blows across the seeded tips of grasses left unattended and lengthened by the sun's coaxing rays. Now, enchanted by a velvety night's caress, a young child leaves the safe sanctuary of hearth and home– compelled to locate the songstress' voice that tickles both ear and curiosity. Always eager to seek opportunities to enter and embrace the magickal realms, this young one quickly lays down among the rippling grasses, sheds the common cloak of convention and emerges into a hidden incandescent world. At this moment, there could be no more glorious music than the play of the wind across my grasses, my eyelashes, my soul. "... from cloud to cloud the moon is swift in flight." Her voice strong– bold– bathing my face with tones of silver light. And as this child forgets self, the evening's lesson begins....

"As above, so below. As within, so without. As the Universe, so the soul," is a quote attributed to Hermes Tristmegistus and recognized as a significant truth. The magickal tools many of us use in our craft and spell work are the manifested reflections of natural principles that have existed ages before our arrival. By studying the canopy of night (Nuit's or Nut's vault) where our star-flung consciousness resides, we discover a storehouse of gifts emerging from our observation of apparently simple truths.

Astrology can be viewed as the study of the relationship of everything to everything else. Called the "mother of all sciences," she remains as fruitful as ever. Her gifts are both plain and fancy (to borrow a term from a community still living close to natural rhythms) and, as with most "universal" truths, can be understood and applied in ways either simple or complex. We may find treasured within her vault many insightful gems and transforming tools.

One facet of astrology we can explore is the Moon and her many faces. The phases contained within her cycle illustrate the relationship between any two (or more) lively forces. Again, universal in nature, those phases of the moon reflect the

Spirit Guide Issue #12, Autumn 2002 Page #12 unfolding development in any form of relationship. We need not get into the more complex and occult aspects of the moon to have a useful magickal tool in our hands. This is what is so "elegant" about astrology: it retains high value in a variety of uses. Like a carpenter's chisel or a magickal wand it is just as effective on a simple task as it is on one that is more complex. "What tool?"

Ellen Kennedy's illustration in Nor Hall's book, "The Moon & The Virgin" gives us a plain picture that's in all ways wise. The Andaman Islanders remember the moon's cycle this way:

Cradled in the right hand is the new crescent (rising in daylight, seen setting in the evening), the full moon is in the center, and cradled in the left hand is the dying crescent (seen rising at night). Hidden and below that lay the dark moon.

Knowing this illustration and the fact that the moon takes 29 1/ 2 days to complete her cycle is all you need to begin. Explaining it simply -all things manifest ina cycle (" circle"). One useful way we can break down a cycle is into 2 (halves), 4 (quarters), or 8 parts (or phases). These numbers reflect the simplest means of natural development and experience. The following can illustrate the phases within the lunar/ solar (Moon/ Sun) cycle of relationship itself or any cycle of relationship developing between two or more lively forces (for example: phases within a marriage, within the solar system, within a plant, within a community, within a project, etc.). These principles of unfoldment remain similar for life forms and events. Don't take my word for it! Test it, try it, see for yourself. Wisdom comes from experience.

Any new cycle emerges gradually, seeking to develop it's potential by nurturing and focusing energy through the course of it's cycle. Also, the beginning is surrounded by the unfinished business, toxic remains or by-products of the past needing to be over-come or included and integrated into the new cycle of unfoldment.

The following lunar (moon) cycle containing eight phases illustrates the basic principles of unfoldment:

1: NEW (Emergence) -The new impulse's effort to overcome the past and to discover it's limits and special purpose.

2: CRESCENT (Assertion) -Mobilizing towards fulfillment and increased momentum. Around the thin crescent can be seen the outline (promise) of the full moon to come.

3: FIRST QUARTER (Action) -Progress tested, direction established, and growing independence. Old forms left behind. Crisis in action.

4: GIBBOUS (Expansion) -Decisions made are now lived with -set directions intensely pursued, stabilized and continuously adjusted.

5: FULL (Fulfillment) -Apex of development, harvest, illumination and objective realiza-tion. Forms built to satisfy individual need can be refined, universalized, and applied to the larger social/ cultural scheme. If not, then forms begin to decay and the activated talents and capacities grow in concious understanding and creative meaning.

6: DISSEMINATING (Synthesis) -Struggle to understand and to let go of forms (trans-formation). Social participation and sharing within a growing vision.

7: LAST QUARTER (Reorientation) -Crisis in consciousness, whatever does not harmonize must be repudiated, old assump-tions tested -possibly transcended. Action of and dedication towards collective ideals.

8: BALSAMIC (Release) -A "seed phase" between what is and what will be. Results of entire cycle essentialized and concen-trated -to become the foundation for a future cycle. Expectant and self-sacrificial.

Mike Welch initiated his Astrology studies in 1980 and Tarot in 1995; achieved Astrology profi-ciency Level 1 certification in 1988 (NCGR); completed First Degree Course -Usui System of Reiki Healing in 1989; and opened his profes-sional consulting office in 1990. He travels a pantheistic pagan, often solitary, pathway.

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