(This is part 4 in a 12-part series about the 12 intelligences humans must acquire for enlightenment throughout the 12 phases of the zodiac.)
The mythical Jesus famously conquered water by walking upon it. But is this Biblical story referring to an actual exoteric historic event or an esoteric teaching?
Rev. Bill Darlison, in The Gospel and the Zodiac – The Secret Truth About Jesus, reminds us that “water has perennially symbolized the emotional nature of the human being.”
As a result, Jesus’s action shows us that he “has conquered those irrational, turbulent forces which reside in the unconscious and constantly threaten to overwhelm us, and has attained that serenity of spirit which marks the enlightened individual, and which is the goal of all spiritual aspirants.”
In other words, once again “Jesus” represents an experience each soul must traverse to transcend this world.
Hence, “walking on water” was a deeply spiritual event symbolizing the reality that each of us must learn to transcend our unbalanced emotional natures and find the balance necessary to walk in this world on the fine line between matter and spirit — without letting our emotions drown us.
As such, balance is the intelligence we must gain during the Cancerian phase of our human journey on this earth.
Many other ancient teachings speak to this same lesson, such as this excerpt from Bhagavad Gita — which compels us to develop balance to realize our divine selves:
Not shaken by adversity,
Not hankering after happiness;
Free from fear, free from anger,
Free from the things of desire.
I call him a seer, and illumined.”
Balance is critical in Cancer, because in this sign souls face great tension between the Cardinal aspects (meaning: related to the equinox) and the Water aspects. Darlison explains:
“In the beautiful, simple imagery of the zodiac we see the tension that is produced in Cancer by the union of cardinality with water: the cardinal signs denote pioneering activity, leadership, whereas water represents the shrinking, fearful, self-protective instinct. Herein lies the paradox of Cancer, so familiar to all of us: just at the point of maximum opportunity to press forward and achieve our goals we retreat fearfully into the securities of the past.
“The crab is the perfect symbol of this. It is one of the most absurdly constructed creatures, a walking paradox, with its skeletal system on the outside protecting its soft and vulnerable interior flesh. Its movement lacks the consistency of direction, which marks the movement of most other creatures. Instead it scuttles, apparently uncertain of its destination, and, just to be on the safe side, it carries its house along with it. Its tenacious claws enable it to grab and hold all those things it needs to make its life bearable.
“Such things give us a clue as to how the ancient world saw the Cancerian type: energetic, but cautious; concerned with home and family; trapped in the past while constantly threatening to break away from it; sensitive and caring beneath a thin but hard shell of aggressive self-protection.
“The spiritual challenge of Cancer, then, lies in coming to terms with our own need for security, which tends to chain us fearfully to the past, and renders us incapable of jettisoning all the accumulated detritus that we consider indispensable to our life.
“It challenges us to open ourselves up, to remove the shell of conditioning and expose our vulnerable underside, to break through the barrier which shuts out the unfamiliar, and which serves as a defense against novel and alien experience.
“We construct our personal carapace out of family, tradition, and fear, and we keep it in place by averting our eyes from the horizon and fixing our gaze downward. We become fierce protectors of our inheritance and eager collectors of anything which might cushion us or our offspring against life’s capricious reversals.”
An eternal truth is that “The function of all spiritual practice — from whatever tradition it comes — is to help us to narrow the gap between self-awareness and other-awareness, to remove that residual film from our eyes which is deluding our sight.”
As such, I’ll end this discussion of our soul’s journey through Cancer with an excerpt from my new favorite book — The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy (which is essentially an ancient Bible, with all of the spiritual wisdom and none of the authoritarian nonsense):
This is the only road to reality.
It is the way our ancestors trod to discover Primal Goodness.
It is sacred and divine, but a hard highway for the soul to travel in a body.
For the soul’s first step is to struggle against itself — stirring up a civil war.
It is a feud of unity against duality.
The one seeking to unite and the other seeking to divide.”
So while your journey passes through the zodiacal sign of Cancer, seek the balance you need to overcome the tumultuous waters surging underneath, above, and all around you.
