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This is the eighteenth part of my essay series “Inner Work with the Planets”. If you haven’t read the earlier parts yet, I suggest you start with part 1 to get the most out of this essay.

As you will remember, last time we got all hands-on. Grabbing our pliers and safety goggles, we bent the planetary ladder into a new shape: a folding ladder, hinging on and turning around the Sun in the highest spot.

One thing we learned from this effort was that the planets aren’t exactly lightweights when it comes to moving them around. But I hope your sore muscles have recovered by now, as a bit further down, we will again do some crafting work on our planetary order.

Before we do that, though, let’s quickly hop back to where we left off last time…

[Read more…] about Like Putty In Our Hands

This is the seventeenth part of my essay series “Inner Work with the Planets”. If you haven’t read the earlier parts yet, I suggest you start with part 1 to get the most out of this essay.

Last time, we (finally! 😉 ) answered a question you might have been grappling with ever since this series started: What will you get out of this? Why is it worth doing this kind of inner work with the planets?

And I hope I not just answered this question to your satisfaction, but also whetted your appetite and, hopefully, encouraged you to actually do the work.

(If you haven’t yet, don’t despair – today is the very best day to get started! 🙂 )

Anyway. Some of you might have some trouble identifying their own planetary coins, their vices and virtues. This is just human, after all. We’re all somewhat blind when it comes to ourselves, aren’t we?

So let’s quickly discuss a few options, just in case you should indeed have some trouble figuring out yourself… [Read more…] about With Pliers and Safety Goggles

This is the sixteenth part of my essay series “Inner Work with the Planets”. If you haven’t read the earlier parts yet, I suggest you start with part 1 to get the most out of this essay.

The last essay ended with us wondering what you could get out of doing this kind of inner work, based on the Hermetic understanding of the planets. Or rather, I suppose it’s something you might be wondering about, and you might be relieved to hear it’s one of the things we’ll be talking about in this essay. 😉

But there’s also something else we’ve never really discussed, and instead have always taken for granted somehow… and that’s the order of the planets.

At some point a while back, I might have mumbled something vague about the planets appearing in the same order as they are in the solar system, or something to that effect. Which is, of course, technically true – if we only talk about what modern astronomy considers to be planets, i.e. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

(As astute reader, you will have noticed that these five appear in exactly the same order as e.g. in the mnemonic “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos”…)

But what about the Moon and the Sun? Why is the Moon’s sphere closest to the earth, and why is the Sun’s smack in the middle of the planetary onion?

Well, we’ll talk about the significance of the Sun and the Moon somewhat more next time. For today, though, let’s first focus on another, no less interesting question: Is the Hermetic order of the planets only determined by their astronomical order? Or does it have some other, more hidden layers to it as well?

[Read more…] about Putting Things in Order

This is the fifteenth part of my essay series “Inner Work with the Planets”. If you haven’t read the earlier parts yet, I suggest you start with part 1 to get the most out of this essay.

The last essay ended on a cliffhanger, with the (as of yet unanswered) question “How did the old Hermeticists approach this ascent of their divine part?”. This time, we’ll pick up where we left off…

[Read more…] about Ditching the Planetary Weight

This is the fourteenth part of my essay series “Inner Work with the Planets”. If you haven’t read the earlier parts yet, I suggest you start with part 1 to get the most out of this essay.

In the first half of this series, we’ve taken a slow, contemplative ascent through the planetary spheres, all the way up from earth to Saturn, and then beyond the planets to the Fixed Stars. We’ve also, somewhat on the side, talked a lot about Hermeticism and some of its concepts and ideas.

Starting with today’s essay, in the second half of this series, we’re going to look at things from a different angle.

(For the mathematicians among you, when I say first and second “half”, I don’t strictly mean a half as in 50%. In fact, you might be relieved – or disappointed? – to hear that the second “half” of the series will be somewhat shorter than the first. But it will also be a lot more practical, and we’ve still got some interesting stuff to discuss, so I hope you’ll stay tuned! 😉 )

Today, for starters, we’re tackling the ascent again: But this time in one go, and with our focus not on understanding each of the planets in detail, but on the ascent as a whole:

What makes this ascent such a worthwhile thing to do? How can it help you in your inner work? And how might it help you improve your life?

Or, in other words: While we’ve mostly been looking at the trees so far, today we’re going to focus on the forest they form. 🙂 [Read more…] about How to Make Your Way to a Tropical Island