Children of the Rainbow-Part II

When Isaac Newton first split light with a prism and constructed his governing principles, he did so based primarily on the studies of low-frequency heat & light. Three hundred years later these computational and fundamental laws seemed to be invalid when analyzing higher frequencies, which led to what is referred to as “the ultraviolet catastrophe”, in late 19thcentury physics. It became obvious to Planck that a drastic new approach was needed for analyzing higher frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, which of course include all levels of fundamental matter and all ranges of sound and light. Everything, every particle & every star in the Universe glows with its own internal heat. It was the study of why hot objects, like our Sun and the stars, glow with colors that they do -or- to put it another way, how electromagnetic frequencies, the ‘colors of light’, correspond to the temperatures within a perfect mathematical “black body”, that led to the development of quantum physics. Planck introduced his basic laws & constants of quantized energy, those that bear his name, which in turn, opened up a doorway for new scientific understanding. He standardized energy, based on an indeterminately small metric of a quanta of light. What Newton had failed to grasp, in his studies of optics, is that the inherent patterns of “relative brightness” hidden within each color of light held the keys to a new reality ­ – the quantum world.

Next Dimension Astrology

What some of astrologers (and non-astrologers alike) have realized is that a drastic approach to the Zodiacal mechanics is probably needed to advance our astrological knowledge. The same natural distribution patterns studied by science are revealing the underpinnings of the energetic world; what I see as a bridge between the material and spiritual dimensions described by both math and myth. These intricate symmetrical harmonies of the shadows within light, the relative luminosity of frequencies of the spectrum, may hold the keys to both the behaviors of light and the behaviors of life. In Part I of this article series, I provided a basic standard model for the chromatic or spectral Zodiac, and the reasonings behind the choice of R-G-B (red-green-blue) over a R-Y-B (red-yellow-blue) symmetrical color model. Primarily that we are analyzing the color frequencies of light, not the color frequencies of pigments.

In this article, we will take a brief look at cultural concepts of the spectral phenomena, and why remembering that we are “children of the astrological rainbow” is important in this alchemy of awakening. What are the pathways and the boundaries of this evolutionary process? Where is the line between animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic, life and death…? What generates the vital essence that pulses through us, and governs those energies by the fractalization of light into a matrix of matter, divided by the flow time? How does ‘mind’ link to ‘matter’ through energy and frequency? Which are then easily translated through a simple natal chart? This is where the mathematical template of the Zodiac already provides the scaffolding for the answers.

Math in the Myths: What are we hiding from ourselves?

I personally believe, that knowing our place in space and time is one of the most important determinants of our personal growth and our collective evolution. The ancient astrological mathematical priests were most venerated because they cultivated and refined this knowledge, which was used to guide their cultures, as they were destined to rise and fall throughout the eras and aeons of time. All levels of increasingly complex cultures passed on guidelines and instructions for working in harmony and union with cycles of nature and of consciousness; and how these cyclical shifts correspond to the movements of the planets. There are those who are born to be the keepers of knowledge, through dark times of ego, separation, and ignorance. The ancient keepers – from whom all of the knowledge our esteemed astrological traditions descend – veiled this wisdom in cultural stories, the timings of rituals and codes in religious texts. While these truths have been blasphemed by many, they were kept knowingly secret by some and as unwittingly sacred by others, to make them continually available for those with the eyes to see & the ears to hear. Without the coordinated efforts of these keepers, we’d be much more spiritually lost in time.

The Mayans assigned roles of leadership and servitude based on date of birth, according to their archetypally divided calendar, which is centered on their studies of planetary cycles and energies. The Egyptians astrologer-priests planned far ahead for mapping our way back from long epochal rising and falling of civilizations through constructing stone pyramids & temples. They instilled an awareness of our connection to the heavens into the daily life and practices of the people. Along with the Babylonians, they passed this knowledge on by various means, evermore cryptically, to the Israelites, the Greeks and subsequently to the Romans. All of which have contributed the basis for the astrology that we have in the West today. It was embedded into hieroglyphs & alphabets, into the maths and the myths, as the ancient shadow slowly fell upon the Earth over the last few thousand years, obscuring the rainbow bridge to higher consciousness. This was done in order to prolong the light a little deeper into the long night and to shorten the awakening at the next new dawn.

For thousands of years in the Mid-to-Far East, the wisdom patterns of nature and heavens were codified. These codes were then sanctified, mythologized, practiced, and studied, through the waxing and waning of many civilizations. They hid meanings of natural phenomena and forces in stories of the cycles of the ‘moods’ and the ‘whims of the gods.’ These wisdom teachings found a key developmental center in India, where they were interwoven with planetary timing-based spiritual practices and also through the standardizations of measurement on which cultural exchange is composed. The daily sounds of the flow of information, commerce and currency have become the life breath of a successful civilization (and we should probably be aware by now, that our modern civilization is starting to hyperventilate - but that is another article).

Children of the Rainbow Part II:

Math, Myth, Shadow & Light

“ALL matter originates and exists ONLY by virtue of a force... We must assume, behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all Matter.”

-Max Planck

Simply Shadows Within the Light

The renown theoretical physicist Max Plank, the “father of quantum physics”, was born on the 23rd of April 1858, with Sun-Pluto three degrees conjunct, and Mercury-Jupiter exact 22˚, as well as Venus and Uranus, six planets, all within 25 degrees in Taurus. I often refer to Taurus as the “sign of the mathematicians”. Many a mathematically gifted mind has come from a calculated and strong Taurean connection to the Earth, as the planets travel through the light of the stars in that region of the heavens. Max Planck was a natural transceiver of these gifts. With the Uranian energy in the mix of forces at play in his natal chart, it is easy to understand that he was born well-equipped to lead a scientific revolution, one which has forever changed the world…for better and for worse. He was the right person, in the right place, at the right time, as the fundamental limits of classical physics had been reached and the beginning of the breakdown of the mathematics which underpin certain Newtonian Laws was underway.

The Universal Rainbow Covenant

A “covenant” is generally thought of as an agreement or oath. In Judaism, a covenant, bĕriyth, is the most binding spiritual and material agreement one can make. A ‘covenant’ is also rooted in related ancient languages as both a “coming and going”, a two-way reciprocation of promise and obligation. One of the most recognizable, yet perhaps misunderstood bĕriyths, is the Noahic covenant or the “rainbow promise” of Yahweh to Noah and his decedents, heralding the Biblical post-flood period. One might consider that the covenant may not be simply referring to a promise “to never destroy the world through a flood again” but possibly that this is a reminder of a key to certain knowledge of the waxing and waning, the coming and going, of the inner workings of G-d within. A rainbow covenant could also be considered an organizing principle of how the macro and micro realities, the cosmic and quantum, are ultimately unified on a fundamental level. How higher and lower frequencies, the domains of light and matter energy, are always in perpetual communication with each other. Many rainbow myths across the world connect or bind the messages and knowledge of the gods to mankind.

"The rainbow will be in the cloud…This is the Sign of the covenant which I have established between myself and every living creature on the Earth."

~Genesis 9:16-17 CJB

More Rainbow Legends

Many cultures have rainbow messengers, creator gods, or evolved entities; most are essentially benevolent, yet consistently seem to come with a story of destruction or a foretelling of a warning. In Hawaii, the maiden goddess Anuenue is the rainbow messenger of her brother, the god Tane, who pushed apart the Heavens from the Earth to create the space for this reality. The Elamite goddess Manzat, the Sumerian goddess Tiranna, the Mesoptanian goddess Shala, and the Akkadian concept of qištu/qaštu, are parallels to the personification of the rainbow and common destruction/creation myths. In Meso-America, the Aztec Quetzalcoatl and Mayan Kukulcán are both of the anthropomorphized feathered serpents of the rainbow, as well as Ix Chel (‘lady rainbow), the goddess of motherhood and rainbows. The various Aboriginal Australian peoples have multiple myths of “rainbow serpent” gods spirits or gods. The ancient Chinese have many as well, including Hong, the rainbow dragon, a blessing to some, a warning to others. In many cultures across the globe, it is bad luck to look at or to point towards a rainbow, as it will bring certain physical diseases and mental afflictions, usually involving becoming asexual or the degradation of society by the switching of gender roles. It is said in Bulgarian myths, that a man who walks beneath a rainbow will begin to think like a woman, and a woman who does, will begin to think like a man.

Death: Now in Technicolor

The complex and beautiful concept of the enlightened Buddhist death process called thukdam, is said to often be accompanied by the release of the sambhogakaya “body of enjoyment” or the jalus/jalü, “rainbow body”. In many Buddhist teachings, the jalü level of realization, rainbow consciousness, is the "the highest state achievable before attaining Nirvanawhere individual desire and consciousness are extinguished." It is associated with tögal, “crossing the peak”, a practice of “leaping over” into direct transcendence to obtain the visions from od-gsal, “luminous mind”; it is the practice of direct perception from within pristine consciousness. Tögal visioning is physically practiced in a space absent of light or by starlight, by engaging the subtle psychic body channels, the aim being to open the flow of rainbow luminous images, such as archetypes, symbols or as sacred geometry, that gradually expand in extent and complexity, and eventually dissolve realities. The death release of the sambhogakaya, “the subtle body of limitless form”, is essentially this same process, an opening of connection into citta-santana, the ‘mindstream’, an ever-expanding moment of a shared-experience continuum, which keeps our consciousness linked to the Buddha-Fields or the creation of the parallel dimension of the Pure Lands.

Iris: Rainbow Messenger Goddess

We all know Hermes/Mercury as the “messenger of the gods” in the Greek pantheon, yet there were many other specific and personal messengers of the gods. Iris and her sister Arke are each considered the personified reflections of the rainbow; Iris, the bright primary rainbow and Arke the dimmer reverse secondary rainbow. Iris is called ‘swift-footed’ and often carries a caduceus, as Hermes/Mercury does. She was instructed by Zeus to carry a pitcher and fly down over the seas to gather water, which she sprinkles into clouds and the sky, creating or becoming the rainbow. In the Homeric poems she appears simply as the rainbow itself. Her name has a triple meaning, in that iris is Greek for “rainbow”, and it is commonly derived from the Greek eiris meaning "the speaker or messenger", as well as being connected to eirô, "I join". She plays the role of joining the gods to mankind through messages in the colors of light. Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, is the joiner, conciliator, or the messenger of heaven, whose role is to restore peace in nature.

Qōs/Quzah/Qaštu: God of the Rainbow

Have you ever heard of the ancient god Qōs or possibly the related Quzah? I wasn’t really that familiar with either of them. As it turns out, Yahweh may have created a twin reflection; or vice-versa, Qōs may have created Yahweh as a twin, who then usurped his position. Either way, in the written record there appears to be a connection with the two. Qōs, meaning “the archer” or “the bow”, is considered the ‘national god’ of the Edomites, with veiled mentions in the Old Testament, yet found frequently within the names in the Egyptian temples particularly on Elephantine Island in the Nile Delta, just above the highest point of the Zodiacal arc of the Tropic of Cancer in Africa. The Egypto-Semitic Qōs was identified with the Arabic god Quzah or qaws quzah, the “Bow of Quzah”, which came to mean simply ‘the rainbow’. The awareness of ‘qaws’ as the rainbow extends through Africa, Egypt, Israel, and all through the Mid-East over thousands of years. He is referred to as ‘king’ and ‘mighty one’, and considered a ‘storm god’, pictured holding a lighting bolt. Qōs also is a common Arabic name for Sign of Sagittarius, Al Qaws (qōs), for ‘the bow’. A side note, Qōs is my new favorite deity.

Chiuta (Qwes’ta): God is in the Rain

In the warm heart of South-Central Africa, the ethnolinguistic group known as the Bantu peoples comprise over 400 ethnic groups and some 450-680 distinct languages, with a common “proto-Bantu” language which dates back to around 4000 years ago. Just under a billion people are estimated to speak a Bantu language. Many Bantu speakers still adhere to a common creator deity and the pre-Christian spiritual concepts, which harken back to an even more ancient source root of knowledge. In the Chewa and Tumbuka mythologies, the supreme creator deity, Chiuta, (meaning “the Great Bow in the Heavens”) is symbolized by the rainbow and is essentially genderless and formless. One could make the argument the Chiuta has a phonetic proto- connection to the previously mentioned Qōs. Chiuta, the self-created, the bringer of storms and lightening, lifted the Sky (male) from the Earth (female) by summoning the clouds and the storm which brought the world into being, creating our reality and everything in it through light. The African spiritual philosophy of ‘ubuntu’ or ‘umunthu’ equates to the idea of, “I am because we are”; it is the knowing that an authentic individual human being is part of a larger and more significant relational, communal, societal, environmental, and spiritual world.

Bridges to Heaven:

In Norse mythology, the shimmering rainbow bridge is called the Bifröst, which connects Earth to the home of the pantheon of the gods, which sometimes considered to be the Milk Way. In Old Norse it is called, Ás-brú, "gods' bridge", or the rainbow. In Japanese mythologies, the Ame-no-ukihashi, the floating bridge between heaven and earth, was used by the twin creator gods Izanagi and Izanami to bring the world into being, it is suggested to be the rainbow, which fleetingly connects Earth the Milky Way. The Māori of New Zealand, the Navajo of the Americas, and the Siberian shaman of the Buryats, (the descendants of the ancient Dingling tribes of Eastern China who share common language root with the Navajo), all speak of the rainbow path of the gods or holy spirits ascending and descending from the stars.

Cauda Pavonis: The Peacock’s Tail

This is a well-known phrase in the language of alchemy. The “peacock’s tail” is a conscious state akin to perceiving the world through a spectrum of psychedelic colors found in the iridescence of a peacock feather or on the surface of a soap bubble, or that bluish-purple veil you can see light up the surroundings just as the Sun sets, melting into a magenta horizon. “The Cauda Pavonis phase of the alchemical process describes a subjective perceptual change in which the wayfarer becomes aware of the dreamlike nature of existence.” The “wayfarer” being you or I, depending on your point of view. We can apprehend this type of shift imagining going into and out of our dreams. Or the instant of stepping through a diamond looking glass and turning to see that everything outside is just a shadowy distortion of what is reflected in its purity on the inside. Yet, realizing even still, that this is not the source of the light but merely a complex reflection.

Conclusion: The Spectral Source Code to Reality?

As both Newton and Planck discovered centuries apart from one another, color holds a key to unlocking the hidden mysteries of our reality. When put in mythological contexts, this is clearly not a new idea. In fact, it’s simplicity and significance seem to have been lost to time. I would say that the information hidden in the light also holds the keys to unlocking a deeper understanding of astrology. The ever-evolving language of mathematics, which underlies the foundations of science (and scientism), also underlies the patterns and structures we can identify within the astrological mechanisms. Our modern mindset is one of perpetual complexification rather than simplification; this is just one of the evolutionary methods of nature. Could it be that the answer is the union of these two possibilities? That it may be just complexifying simple – a “cosmological simplex”? Afterall, this reality is a duality, the sum of paradoxes, lest we forget. As I have stated many times in the past, I believe the divisional arrangements and mathematical rhythms within the Zodiac and astrology were constructed on this same simplex pattern. As astrologers, we already know how the reflective symmetries of the Zodiac work. We understand how the angles of light effect or correspond with our individual psyches and the patterns of collective consciousness. Whether you know it or not, you already understand quantum light physics — just on the person-to-planet, macro scale.

I suppose the point of this colorful discourse, if there be one, is that life is an evolutionary exercise in shifting our center of thinking away from the matter-based puppet bodies that we are inhabiting, and towards remembering that we are the rainbow creator energies within them. And how this simple quality of color could be a clue to the code-works of nature and astrology; just as it has been for understanding our hidden quantum reality and for rediscovering that we hail from the realms of the gods. ~ May Everything Be Illuminated…