Studies in Astrology
by
Elman Bacher
Volume VIII
Chapter III
Fatherhood
This discourse, pertaining to a specialized human
identity, will be dealt with by considering a correlation of mandalas. Three
will be required: (1) The Great Mandala--Aries Ascendant; (2) The mandala of
Love-Power--Leo Ascendant; (3) The mandala of archetypal Fatherhood-identity--
Capricorn Ascendant. For each of these, apply the zodiacal sign-symbols in
sequence, the circular symbol of the Sun at the center and the personal-Sun
symbol (the horizontal line and semi-circle of the rising Sun) in each Leo-
house.
First--to consider the significance of Fatherhood-
identity as a factor in the pattern of the Great Mandala, the horoscope of the
archetype, Humanity. Capricorn, the upper of the two signs of the parentage-
line (the vertical diameter) is the exaltation-sign of the male principle,
Mars. Exaltation, vibratorily speaking, is maturity, and the maturity of the
self-conscious, separative quality of Mars is found in the assumption and
fulfillment of legitimate responsibilities. The responsibility implied in
Capricorn as one of the two factors of the Cancer-Capricorn diameter, is that
of providing form as an expression of Love-Power. The diameter of Cancer-
Capricorn is the polarization of the Principle of Matrix; it is, in human
terms, the essential design, or pattern, which identifies the human form.
The arch-symbol of matrix, is, of course, the maternal
sign Cancer; it is the Mother who provides the essential seed from which the
human form is emanated in gestation. The polarization of this arch-principle
of Capricorn is the impregnation of the form-seed by the male aspect of the
Principle of Form-begetting. As such, the human identity is Father--the male
personification of that which represents, to the Begotten, the security of
recognizable Form. Insecurity is one of the two arch-roots of negative
conditioning; frictional and congestive aspects involving Moon and Saturn,
are, in astrology, insecurity-patterns. Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, is
initiator of the Earth-trine (Capricorn, Taurus, and Virgo)--the principle
which identifies this trine is stewardship of begotten form. This refers to
the begetting and guidance of children (Capricorn), life-sustainment by
material exchange (Taurus), and work-expression (Virgo). Moon-Cancer is the
security-symbol of the immature human; the immature ones find security in the
nurture, protection and sympathetic affection represented by the Moon as
symbol of the mother-instinct. Saturn-Capricorn is the security-symbol of the
mature human; the mature ones assume and fulfill responsibilities, they
perfect their expression of potentials in contributive action relative to the
large family, Society.
If Cancer symbolizes our tendency to cling to that
which protects us externally, Capricorn and the Saturn-vibration symbolizes
our urge to establish our own individual security by regeneration of
consciousness and expressing from that basis. Through Cancer we are the
citizens of a family-group; through Capricorn we are citizens of the larger
family of state, nation, and race; the archetype of this citizenship is, of
course, our identity as Earthians--fellow-inhabitants of this planet of the
solar system.
Everyone--male or female--has Moon-Cancer and Saturn-
Capricorn somewhere in the chart. These picture the biune security symbol of
Humanity. In each incarnation we specialize our archetype; we carry
subconscious instinct-memories of experience as the opposite sex from one
incarnation to the next; we also carry aspirational urges to realize unity all
through our sequence of incarnations. That in which we default, through
ignorance and desire-congestion in one incarnation, we experience
retroactively in the next, or a subsequent, incarnation. A female can learn a
great deal about fatherhood principles through her experience as daughter,
wife, or mother in relationship to males who outpicture her past fatherhood
defaults. A male actively recapitulates the essence of past fatherhood-
defaults by (it starts in each incarnation with this) his subconscious
reactions to his father when he is in the immature, impressionable state. We
are magnetized to our fathers by composite of dissimilarities and similarities
to them. In other words, our individualized consciousness (ignorance or
wisdom) of the principles of fatherhood is that which makes our particular
father-relationship what it is in a given incarnation. We do not create our
fathers, but our consciousness is the conditioning factor that determines the
quality of our relationship with our father. Consciousness always determines
relationship-quality.
Now, the mandala with Leo as Ascendant. This is the
archetypal mandala of Love-Power, that which is the resource of all emotional
reaction and expression. It is the basic source of all emotional
identification of relationship and, as the Creative Aspect of Father-Mother-
God, it is the one love of which we all partake throughout our incarnations
and which we are continually aspiring to realize and express in our
relationship with human and sub-human life. Referring to the subject at hand
we see that this power is "parented" in our consciousness by the generative
force we call desire; the diameter of Scorpio-Taurus is the vertical of this
mandala. The sexuality of the male and female gives incarnated form to the
reappearance on this plane of a human focalizer of solar power. The personal
desire of parents for union with each other masks the archetypal regenerative
aspiration which, rooted by Scorpio at the fourth cusp of this mandala, starts
as sex-expression but flowers as love-expression.
The Capricorn of fatherhood-identity is seen to be the
sixth house sign of this mandala. The diameter of which it is the male
polarization (Capricorn-Cancer) forms the sixth-house-twelfth-house diameter
of this mandala, and it is analogous to the Virgo-Pisces diameter of the Great
Mandala (Aries Ascendant). This diameter is the Principle of Redemption by
personal (Virgo) and impersonal (Pisces) service. Since Love-Power is the
"thing incarnated" in this mandala, every factor in it is an aspect of Love.
The placement of fatherhood-Capricorn at the sixth cusp is, in the
specialization of male consciousness, the human expression of Divine Love by
willingly assuming the responsibilities (Saturn vibration) to serve the on-
going of human life (sixth house) by male expression as a form-begettor. St.
Joseph, the human father of Jesus, is a personification of the purity of
spiritualized human fatherhood. His parental service and devotion were
expressions of a consciousness of the one love to instrumentate the begetting
of a perfected human form. A devotional exercise of great power has been
performed by millions of humans who have knelt with reverence before images
and pictures of this benign Vibration because they, as symbols, convey a sense
of the livingness of the loving, protective stewardship of fatherhood as
microcosm of the father-hood of the Solar Logos. This sanctified
Consciousness, in male form, has transmuted personal, genetic, possessive
desire into an octave of spiritualized epigenetic service; he, and his
prototypes throughout the ages, symbolize to the inner knowing of Humanity the
Love that is specialized in the fatherhood-identity; His purity and devotion
are archetypal of that true security which all immature ones seek to receive
from their fathers, which all fathers should seek to realize in themselves and
which all humans must, sooner or later, realize to be an aspect of a divine
attribute. Fathers: turn your natal chart so that your Leo-cusp becomes the
Ascendant; study this arrangement as your specialization of the Leo-mandala
with reference to the conditions indicated by the Saturn-vibration. What is
your consciousness of fatherhood as a Love-Service? How is your consciousness
of your own father's love pictured? Do you tend to repeat, in your experience,
what you interpreted as defaults in him? For what things do you honor him in
your heart and seek to be honored by your own children?
Here, for variety, is offered a reading-suggestion
pertaining to literary portraits of highly evolved father-consciousness; you
may, as an astrological student, enjoy a stimulus of your inner knowing by
consideration of these imaginary archetypal personalities to correlate with
your present study of fatherhood principles:
John Evered in "Strange Woman" by Ben Ames Williams;
Ling Tang in "Dragon Seed" by Pearl Buck; Stephen Sorrel in "Sorrel and Son"
by Warwick Deeping; Phillip Gordon in "Well of Loneliness" by Padclyffe Hall;
Lavrans Bjorgulfson in "Kristin Lavransdatter" by Sigrid Undset; David
Naughton in "Claudia" by Rose Kranken. The qualities of highly developed
masculinity are combined with wisdom and protective strength in these
characters which keynote the evolved father type.
Further consideration of Capricorn in the Leo mandala
reveals it to be the ninth house sign of the Midheaven, Taurus, and hence the
Wisdom-aspect of the principle of Stewardship. The man has, for the most part,
been the "bread winner" of human families since primitive times. In such
experiences, all Egos--incarnating periodically as males--distill clearer
realization of the spiritual principles involved in the material stewardship
of Life. It is clearly shown in this mandala that in all families of which the
father is the material support, one of the father's basic responsibilities is
to teach the principles of right exchange in material matters.
That duty becomes a focalization of his father-
purpose in this incarnation. To the degree that he is unaware of such
principles will the mother, or others, have to fulfill that responsibility.
Right exchange is an aspect of true security and as such it is evidenced in
all psychological and spiritual maturity. To the degree that the father is
spiritually informed on this matter is it incumbent upon him to guide his sons
and daughters in the spiritual preparation of their practical and professional
experience. To the degree that he is free from congestion on desire-for-
possession-of-things (a crystallizing lockjaw of the consciousness of
stewardship) will he be qualified to instruct truthfully. This is wisdom
illuminating the practical experience-chapters of human life and no one
functioning as an adult male can be considered an evolved father who is
ignorant of this Principle.
Now--the Capricorn Mandala: the abstract horoscope of
fatherhood-identity; fourth aspect of the Great Mandala and first aspect based
on the Earth Element as Ascendant. Because this mandala is that of an
archetypal identity, we consider it from a little different standpoint than we
do a natal horoscope. The vertical diameter becomes "parentage
archetypalized." In other words, instead of male and female parent it is an
archetypal instinct--an evolutionary urge--from which the identity is derived.
Fatherhood and its polarity, motherhood, is "born of" the evolutionary
instinct to transform the two "I AM's" of separative Aries and Libra into the
composite "We Are" of the Aries-Libra diameter, herein pictured as the
vertical diameter. Because our subject is a masculine specialization, we look
to the male significator of this diameter. It is the Mars sign Aries, the
matrix of Male Principle, the arch-vibratory symbol of individualized
awareness of being. Fatherhood, primitively speaking, results from an action
of the male to express his instinctive genetic urge and relax tensions. In
primitive stages of consciousness, "love-exchange" is unknown--mating is a
fusion of self-ish instinctive urge. But, from repetition through many
incarnations the marital consciousness is distilled. The "WE ARE" of evolved
husbandhood and wifehood distills, in its turn, regenerated consciousness of
parentage principles--the laws of the Cosmos as they specialize through
experience as human fatherhood and motherhood. If Mars, as ruler of this
fourth house (the psycho-genetic base) is symbol of basic male quality, its
ninth house sign, Sagittarius, at the cusp of the twelfth house, is the
"matrix" of the spiritual redemption of the father-identity. This redemption
is seen in the expressive giving-ness quality of Sagittarius's ruler, Jupiter.
In back of every father is the Wisdom Aspect of his individualized
consciousness. He incarnated as male, undertook fatherhood experience as an
adult in order to redeem through wisdom. "What was good enough for me should
be good enough for my kids" is an attitude completely outmoded--it is
fatherhood congested. The urge to improve conditions for his children--
esoterically or exoterically--is the evolutionary progress specializing in the
father consciousness. Also, Jupiter's exaltation in the Moon's sign, Cancer,
pictures the masculine polarization of the Principle of Nurture; the
tenderness, generosity, and out-going goodness of Jupiter identify the father
as giver--of protection, guidance, and material good. Primitive man, like most
animals, was not for the most part concerned with his children as individuals.
Jupiter, in father-nature, is a distillment of compassion, sympathy, and
interest in children--the result of epigenetic expression through many
incarnations. If Jupiter pictures a man's expression of paternal love, as a
specialization of Solar Love, Saturn pictures Humanity's archetypal symbol of
the fatherhood identity and principle: He who gives form as expression of
contributive love, who personifies to the Begotten the protective Principle,
who out-pictures the mature masculine vibration, who out-pictures the
unregeneracies and regeneracies of the individual's consciousness of the
Father Principle and who personifies the masculine cornerstone of society's
structure. The unregenerate father is the unregenerate citizen, the incapable
teacher, blind to his essential attributes as a focalizer and expressor of
Love-Power. The regenerate father, the "White-lighted Saturn," gives and
sustains incarnation in Love-service, exemplifies in his person and character
that upon which the family and society can build a better structure, expresses
an awareness of the guiding truths of Life. He is one who influences and
guides by principle, not by personal congestion, and he knows the truth of
Love in human relationships.
So--Saturn in a natal horoscope is the instinctive or
subconscious father-picture--one aspect of the security urge which is the
consciousness of the ever-protectiveness of Father-Mother God. The Capricorn
Mandala has the "Love-matrix" Leo on the eighth cusp. Spiritualized fatherhood
is sexual expression raised to the octave of love-consciousness. It is not a
"hit-or-miss" expression--it is spiritually inspired, spiritually planned,
spiritually and beautifully expressed as a releasement of solar power. (Occult
instruction tells this over and over.) The spiritual exercise of planned
(Self-directed) fatherhood synchronizes perfectly with the essences of the
eighth house, the sign Leo and the power of Saturn as a charging of generative
experience, by the male, with the utmost resource of Love-Power.