It has been observed that most astrological students, at one time or another, experience a distressing confusion in their efforts to study and analyze individual factors of a chart and trying, at the same time, to relate those factors to the sum total of the chart. This material is offered in the hope that it will serve to focus zodiacal sequences in their formations of cross and trine so that chart-factors will be more clearly perceived. for their individual value as well as for their relationship to the total. Two sheets of paper — at least as large as standard typing paper will be used for mandalas.

   The first step for condensation will be to review what has been said in these articles many times: there is only one horoscope; one Sun, one Moon, one of each of the planets, one Ascendant and one Midheaven, one of each of the houses and signs, one square and one opposition, one conjunction, one sextile and one trine, one radius and one diameter. All of which is so because there is only one Center and one fulfillment of the potentials of that Center.

   The Center is, of course, the creative archetypal idea humanity — of which each human being is a specialized expression, incarnating by law in the triune dimension of time — space — polarity. Your individual identity in this dimension is twofold: your unfulfillments and your relative fulfillments. The purpose of reincarnating is to realize the perfected identity through fulfillment of all potentials. You are an individualized vehicle of the Cosmic Law of Cause (positive polarity) and Effect (negative polarity) because you possess the attributes of expressing your potentials (setting up causes) and reacting to the effects of causes. The perfected Identity is made through the processes of causing and reacting in consistence with Love-Wisdom. Your evolutionary modulations are the ways in which you choose to express (initiate cause) and to react (interpret the effect).

   With a narrow side on top, divide one paper into twelve equal sections — three across and four down. The top line is designated "Fire"; the upper left section is designated "1-Cardinal "; the middle is "2-Fixed "; and the right section is "3-Mutable." The second "across" line is designated "Earth"; the third "Air"; and the fourth "Water." (This entire diagram can be drawn neatly if a compass is used for the circles.)

   In the center of the upper-left "square," place a dot, then draw a straight horizontal to the left about an inch long. End this line with a large black dot.

   As your pencil-point emanated that line from the central dot, you were creating a motion-picture, symbolically, of the chemicalization of polarity-forces. This line, as you know, is the Ascendant of the horoscope-to-be; it symbolizes the appearance of the Sun on the Eastern horizon-the "body of daytime" — and it also symbolizes your chemicalized appearance on this plane at birth-the "dawn" of your incarnation. In this line are symbolically contained the sum-total of your "generic elements" — your qualities of, and capacities for, being a causer and a sympathetic-vibrator to the effects of causes. In these terms is found your vibratory identity as masculine and feminine, respectively. In your physical body is seen a chemical specialization which we call sex; as long as adherence to biological karma is maintained, your consciousness of this specialization is ignited by vibratory contact with persons of the other sex. Your vibratory karma is ignited by persons of either physical sex whose masculine-feminine "vibratory mixtures" represent complementation of consciousness to you. Think about this.

   This line, being a straight one, is the simplest way of picturing your generic potentials distilled from all of your previous incarnations and "brought into focus" during the prenatal development preceding this incarnation. We will now "unfold" the Ascendant-line as a flower unfolds its petals and study the significance of the one cross as the archetype of human relationship-consciousness from which all of our interpretation of experience is fundamentally derived.

   From the central dot of this first drawing, draw an upward vertical, a downward vertical, and the other horizontal — to the left. We now have an archetypal — pure — picture of the "skeleton" of the four macrocosms of identity — the masculine-feminine of the male and the feminine- masculine of the female. Counter-clockwise, starting with the Ascendant, place the symbols for Aries, Capricorn, Libra, and Cancer — respectively — at these points. The twofold vertical now composites the line of generation — the dynamic process by which substance for the new life is generated by the "collaboration" of the parents. Cancer, ruled by the Moon, is mother; Capricorn, its complement, is father. Both are life-givers; one — the male — impregnates; the other — the female — receives the impregnation.

   Now, from the mid-point of the Cancer-line, draw three-quarters of a circle upward through the mid-point of Libra to the mid- point of Capricorn then downward to the mid-point of Aries. The three quadrants traversed by this line — compositing nine houses — symbolize the nine months of the pre-natal period, from conception to birth. The Libra-line symbolizes the timing during this period when the physical sex of the incarnation-to-be becomes objectified and the potentials of the opposite sex are subjectified — to be subsequently out pictured, during incarnation, by the mate. The complement of this pattern will be seen in drawing the "nine-houses line" from Capricorn downward and upward to Libra — in other words "from father to daughter" as the Cancer-Aries line is "mother-to-son." If it were possible to draw these two lines simultaneously the picture would be that of turning the "parental vertical" through the pre-natal period to the point of birth; an "X-ray" of coordinating the generic elements for the incarnation-to-be.

   An individual incarnates through his/her particular parents by the magnetic action of sympathetic vibration of his/her masculine-feminine combination to their individual and collective masculine- feminine combination. The other — and very important — factor of this magnetic action is the "attraction of differences" — the child 's individuality contrasting with the individuality of each parent. All relationship between people serves evolution and relationship means vibratory exchange. If the child were a duplicate of "half of his father and half of his mother" no exchange could be made — hence no vibratory attraction would be possible.

   The "individuality" of the child-to-be is seen in the one remaining quadrant of this drawing — the three houses of Aries-to- Cancer. This is the involution — after birth — into the use of physical and etheric vehicles and no one can do that but the child himself. He, no one else, uses his body his mind, his feelings, emotions, abilities and talents. The parents provide body-substance at conception and they exercise their own minds in love-service to the child after birth, but the child's involution for use of vehicles is, of necessity, an individual matter. (The complementation of this is, of course the quadrant from Libra to Capricorn.) What is "contained" in the composite chemical and etheric vehicle is, of course, that which is to be expressed, redeemed, and fulfilled in the incarnation.

   This drawing of pictures in symbols presents a strange and remarkable fact: each human-being is his own parentage, his own fraternity, and his own complementation — husbandhood — wifehood. Other people are related to us by our feeling-reaction to them but all of our feeling-reactions emanate from the same source — our consciousness. Therefore, other people are chemicalized expressions — or outpicturings of our own vibratory mixtures. Knowing this, the great Ones have told us to "Love Ye One-Another."

   Now we have pictured the basis of human relationships: the masculine-feminine male who is a causer of effects and reactor to effects ("giver" and "taker") and she who is bi-polar female-causer and reactor, giver and taker. All human relationships are derivatives of this four-fold basis. Therefore, the Cardinal Cross in our first diagram represents the "four-in-one" identity, the four ways by which human-beings say "I AM." But identity is not sufficient unto itself, it needs expression to perfect itself. So, each one of these cardinal signs emanates from itself — just as a line is emanated from a dot, or a plane from a line — two expressions of spiritual identity — love and wisdom. Love is the spiritual goal — redemption — of desire; wisdom is the spiritual goal — redemption — of ignorance. Desire-ignorance is the twofold karmic compulsion to reincarnation; through it we forge the evolutionary path from virginity to ideality-realization. The cardinal signs are, abstractly, the corner-stones of our "house of life" — the rooms of which are the twelve houses of the one horoscope.

   There is, as was said before, only one cross as a pattern, the interchange of positive and negative. Now to correlate the fixed cross and the mutable cross with the cardinal cross, create a twelve-housed wheel in each of the two remaining sections of the top line, which you have already designated as "fixed" and "mutable," respectively, of Fire. On "fixed" place the symbol for Leo on the Ascendant, Taurus at tenth, Aquarius at seventh, and Scorpio at fourth; "mutable" place the symbol Sagittarius on the Ascendant, Virgo at tenth, Gemini at seventh, and Pisces at fourth. Let your eyes travel from Aries to Leo to Sagittarius. You are impressing your mind with the fact that the three signs of the Fire-Trine initiate the first representations of the cross of the great mandala. The pattern of elements in each are parallel: Fire-Son, Earth-Father, Air-Female complement and Water-Mother. (Reversing these wheels makes Fire the male complement.) From Aries through nine signs to Capricorn is "exaltation" — maturity — of the "I AM"; from being a "begotten," the arch-symbol of expression — Mars — fulfills itself in "fatherhood" — becoming a life-giver. This symbolizes the first three quadrants of the progressed Moon after birth — the climax of physical, mental, and emotional involution. (Spiritual involution is attained during the 28th and 30th years — the completion of the first cycle of progressed Moon and transiting Saturn.)

   Since the generic sequence is from Fire to Earth to Air to Water we can now complete our tabulation of the other "emanations." The three wheels of the Earth-line will have as Ascendants, Capricorn, Taurus, and Virgo respectively the three wheels of the Air-line will have Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini respectively; the three wheels of the Water-line will have Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces as ascendant, respectively. Place the symbols for the other three structure points appropriately in all the wheels — the last of which, Pisces Ascendant, will represent the cross that focalizes the most feminine, receptive and reflective of all twelve. The line of gestation in each wheel is (being two-fold): from female of vertical to male of horizontal (as Cancer to Aries) and from male of vertical to female of horizontal (as Capricorn to Libra) — always traversing three quadrants.

   For practical application, since the planetary ruler of a chart focalizes the vibration of the Ascendant sign, it is suggested that these mandalas be studied in reference to the generic chart; this is the variation of the natal chart in which the chart is turned (unless the ruler of the Ascendant is in the Ascendant sign) so that the cusp covered by the sign containing the ruler appears as the Ascendant. If the person is male and that sign is a male sign, that variation is the male generic chart; the sign male and the person female, reverse and read as female, etc. Apply the "gestation line" to the generic chart that coincides with physical sex for parentage identification — correlate with natal chart. The two generic variations "splice" the generic composite of the natal horoscope and the generic elements can therefore be studied separately.

   Now the second paper for further condensation.

   From the center of the page create a wheel of about two inches in radius; place the zodiacal symbols in regular sequence about an inch from the circumference. Between this ring of sign-symbols and the circumference, forming a second ring, place the symbols from the Ascendant counter-clock-wise: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces; Libra, Aquarius, Gemini; Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo. Cardinal signs, fixed signs, and mutable signs cover cardinal houses, fixed houses, and mutable houses. This inner ring of the signs shows us the "unfoldment" of the elements in terms of their Love-Wisdom potentials — the spiritual expressions of identity. This "spread" shows us decanates in action. The Identity-congestion, Desire-congestion, and Ignorance-congestion of the cardinal, fixed, and mutable crosses, respectively, find their redemptions through the Love-Wisdom attributes that are inherent in each sign as an expression of the "I Am" principle.

   Each house of the horoscope is a specialized environmental-experience-relationship focus for evolution; the sign-sequence of the Great Mandala synchronizes principle with activity; in other words, the philosophical principles inherent in each of the basic twelve "experience-departments" are pictured by the essential meaning of the sign that is abstractly identified with it. Variations of sign-placement on cusps of houses are matters of individual evolution; but we can perceive them with greater clarity if we recognize that all variations are emanations — not "differences" — from an archetypal base.

   The zodiacal belt around the outside of every horoscope is a complete and unbroken sequence always. The "spread" of each element into the trine-formation, enclosing the wheel, is the spiritual unfoldment of each of the four generic bases throughout the chart. The confusion felt by students is toward the sequence of "cardinal, fixed, mutable" being synchronized with "Fire, Earth, Air, Water." Recognize now, if you have never done so before, that the seeming "mixing up" of cross with trine is a symbolic picturing of a Cosmic Truth: Microcosm is never separate from the Love-Wisdom of its Macrocosm — or "Humanity from Father-Mother God."

   Think about this — quietly, deeply, and with focused concentration. It has been stated over and over by teachers through religion and philosophy for ages of time; let the realization emanate from your inner knowing.

   Since we, as "Ascendants" are microcosm of Father-Mother God the Law of Correspondence (as above, so below; as below, so above) applies to us in this way: our own potentials for Love-Wisdom are in us eternally — regardless of our congestions, confusions, and darknesses. These darknesses of consciousness are evidences of "un-love" and "un-wisdom" having been expressed — but we ourselves are the sources of their transmutations.

   Try this condensation with many charts if you have them available. List planets in each chart by cross, then identify their trine-placement. Make "sketch wheels" utilizing the "decanate-spread" — starting from the Ascendant sign to establish the picture in your mind that each sign is a consciousness power that can express into higher and higher octaves. Your whole approach to chart-analysis and synthesis will be simplified and clarified thereby.