The Signs of astrology represent twelve different modalities of consciousness. They can be rationalized in sequence as a progression of seasons, as a daily cycle of the biological clock, and as stages of enlightenment. Daily online horoscopes attest to the universal applicability of each, and that is how I choose to regard them. How do they help me identify the pitfalls of the imaginative life with which I must deal on this day, at this hour? In what state of awareness am I likely to arrive in the spotlight, on an impossible mission to resacralize this world clinging to authoritative archaisms, when I get to where the Sun will be in unsettled late Spring, the upside down Constellation which tries to be the scales of justice but looks more like the boot of the law, Libra in the Southern Sign of insecure tranquility, or of totally unjust, even fascist, aggressive assertiveness in the North, according to the authoritative archaism of Northern Hemisphere Tropical Astrology? How do I cope with aggression when I’m feeling insecure? How can consciousness rescue healing from neediness?

Why, I immerse myself in the world of the senses, of course. I listen to Mozart; I get out my colouring book; I turn off the news; I delight in the sunset, and the innocence of culturally diverse children hurrying home to dinners prepared by their brothers and fathers. In short, I activate my sensualist module. Less practised in my youth, I once tended to be seduced by the beauty of people, but this led to excesses of sexual instinct, and made my Shadow unmanageable. I now know how to circumvent the stirring of my sexuality module. The ultimate goal of the Libra module is enjoyment of the meaningless beauty of the surface of the world, the complete surrender of rational discrimination, in the Buddhist sense, to gratitude for what simply is. The tranquil beauty of sensualism is so seductive, its success in relieving me of fear, anger, shame and guilt so complete, that I am beguiled by the sense that I do not exist, except as the delight in itself of a benign creation.

Now, not only can I find tolerance of fundamentalist observance of archaic rules for separating conscious good from unconscious and instinctive evil, but I know that my impressions of beauty differ from those of others, and that the only way for me to preserve my equanimity in the company of divergent senses is to remain silent, save perhaps for an occasional “Ohhh!” of transcendent appreciation revealing only my worship. Indeed, the maxim, ‘Love yourself in order to be able to love others’ is entirely persuasive. Am I not resplendent in my spacious horizontal connections with colour and scent, dappled shadows and the tinkle of clear streams? Are we not one, dissolved in beauty?

Unfortunately, Libra is not a permanent state. The boundary the sensualist creates between light and dark is made permeable by language, the necessary vehicle for purpose, with all its ambiguities, manipulations and inferences. We must work, we must engage, and are never free of the judgment it takes to understand each other. Our unconscious reveals itself to others, even when we deny it. “By their projections shall ye know them.” There is particular irony in the experience of discrimination by minorities in multicultural societies like the one I live in, which pride themselves on diversity: in the subsumation into identity, narrative and right of what we might share in silence, the discrimination is theirs.

So verily I say unto thee, hearken unto the words of the prophet. Lift up thine eyes from the earth unto heaven. Look not upon the shadow of another, though it fall between you and the light. The prophet says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one escapes the Shadow except through me. Shadows! Rejoice for the person who takes guidance from priest, prophet or astrologer beckoning towards the light, for be assured that the shadow of sin will remain hidden, especially if it is a lantern which casts it invisible behind us. Pity the native of the tropics who, confused by the direction of the light, sometimes in submission to error finds the shadow all too visible preceding, or lost altogether in mayhem of who knows whose making.

Where does the shadow go when the light is directly overhead? And what of the shadow cast by the Moon? When Sun and Moon are casting your shadow in opposite directions, the unconscious can be difficult to avoid. This happens in the tropics. Therefore place your trust in the prophet, and stand so that you never have to bend over backwards to gaze upon him, lest dizzily you cast your eyes down and see the hidden animal in you crawling before you with the serpents. Vigilance must safeguard us from ourselves. The shibboleths of devils who steal shadows and denizens of the underworld like zombies, bogeymen and bunyips will not trouble us who keep our eyes on the light.

This Moon, the eighth in the Islamic calendar, can deliver salvation to believers, in jihad if they face south. Rest assured that the prophet has subterranean influences under control. The Libra Moon transits in opposition not only to the Sun, but this year to the “CMB Cold Spot” in Eridanus, where unbelievers fear our entire finite universe to be in touch with another in a Multiverse. Perhaps it is so, and this is where bunyips come from, and shadows go. Fear not, if you keep your shadow behind you, it cannot attain a third dimension and take over your world, denying you salvation in perpetuity.

Peoples of the south, though you be not safe from the north, fear not the jihadists who keep the shadow behind them. They will turn as they reach you, and pass without harm like the babbling of a brook. It is written: the tranquility of sensuality shall protect you from rampant disregard of the sanctions against the unconscious.

The prophet says, give yourself up to the senses. Behold creation in its depthless measure. Your ascendant promises originality, meaning what has been here from the beginning, the perfect ideal, and the descendant chattering behind your left shoulder reminds you in awful dread that rebellion, at the edge of the world, is where the light ceases, and the Shadow will consume you.

All those in favour of a world without offence, say ‘I’!