On a story sea of moving emotion, Tossed about I’m like a ship on the ocean
You are a fishing boat, beset by the waves of a dark sea. No one is on board, but the craft moves forward nonetheless.
The stars are reflected on the surface of the waters.
The waves come at the boat from all directions. Large waves push it where they will as it struggles against their influence, rocking it, causing water to spill onto the deck. Smaller waves subtly push it, changing it’s course.
In the darkness, with the play of the lights in the ripples, it is hard to know which direction the boat is traveling.
So, we can construct a compass.
Each of our compass divisions shows the reflection of a constellation.
Over time, we begin to notice waves coming from certain directions (or Houses) have different natural qualities. These waves are large and slow, generally gentile, as our boat sails onward.
- House 1 reflects Aries, and its waves crash against the hull, affecting the boat’s appearance and how it moves.
- House 2 reflects Taurus, and its waves cause the deck to rock, sliding our possessions around.
- House 3 reflects Gemini and its waves jostle the radio equipment and antennas.
- House 4 reflects Cancer, and its waves shakes the cabin of the boat where we take shelter.
- House 5 reflects Leo, and its waves rustle our paintings, our instruments, and our chess set.
- House 6 reflects Virgo, and its waves knock open the medicine cabinet.
- House 7 reflects Libra, and its waves spill open the photo album of our friends and family.
- House 8 reflects Scorpio, and its waves turn the boat and threaten to sink it.
- House 9 reflects Sagittarius, and its waves force us to steer into them, lest we be capsized.
- House 10 reflects Capricorn, and its waves lift us high above the surface of the ocean, for all others to see.
- House 11 reflects Aquarius, and its waves push us closer to other ships.
- House 12 reflects Pisces, and its waves cannot be seen, only revealed by the state of the hull.
We also see the planets and Sun and Moon reflected on the waters. As they float by, they pull on the waters to create their own ripples on the sea. These waves are tall and sharp, dramatically tossing the boat around.
- The Sun creates waves that push our boat to its limits, revealing its qualities.
- The Moon’s wave rock the boat forward and back, left and right, changing how it feels to be on board.
- Mercury’s waves spill onto the boat’s radio as well, potentially shorting it out.
- Venus’s waves threaten to shove our boat into another, spilling our treasures overboard.
- Mars’s waves roughly shove the boat in a direction, no matter which way the boat is facing.
- Jupiter’s waves playfully bounce the boat, giving it speed as it crests the top and rolls down the other side.
- Saturn’s waves knock the boat to face a specific direction, unable to be resisted.
- Uranus’s waves create troughs that the boat can steer into, away from other’s we may collide with.
- Neptune’s waves seem different from a distance than when they reach the boat, causing us to potentially prepare for the wrong thing.
- Pluto’s waves calm the waters for a moment, allowing the ship to reorient and motor forward.
When waves meet they interfere with each other. The crest of one wave can cancel out the trough of another. Two crests will rise even higher, two troughs even lower.
Waves from planets, as their reflections bounce through the waters, will interfere with waves from each of houses. Some planets seem at home in a particular house, strengthening the waves from that direction. Others seem completely out of place, muting the effects of those waves.
Similarly, waves from the planets will interfere with each other. This can cause our boat to rise to great heights and fall to extreme depths as it struggles to stay on the surface.
Like the flare of a match struck in the night some of us may eventually notice a spark of light on the horizon of this dark night at sea. A lighthouse pointing to safe passage.
Our boat struggles against the waves, desperately steering into them to avoid capsizing, as we try to orient ourselves toward the distant beacon. Yet, no matter how much we fight to approach it, it never seems to get closer. Fear of the ship sinking, and struggling to keep it upright, forces our course laterally from our goal.
To some boats, a peculiar thing happens.
There is a realization that there is no one on board. And if there is no one on board, there is no danger from the sea, and no reason to fight the waves. Sails are furled, the motor is shut off. We point the bow toward the lighthouse one final time.
Suddenly the rolling waves seem to calm. We are gently lifted and lowered. Still rocked about, but every splash seems to nudge us so we are oriented toward the light.
And as we face it, clouds that we never realized were there part, and we see that rather than a lighthouse we have been steering toward the sunset. It reflects on the waters, creating a perfect path to follow, and highlighting every ripple on the surface.
And so we see that everything we struggled against simply kept us further from home, and all we had to do was find our proper orientation and let the waves do the rest.
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