Page:The message of the stars - an esoteric exposition of medical and natal astrology explaining the arts of prediction and diagnosis of disease (IA messageofstarses00heiniala).pdf/12

3 existence, in which the weak perish unless able to outdistance their foes, This phase of the matter is sometimes expressed in the symbol, when drawn as part fish and part antelope, Jacob, in the thirty-third chapter of Deuteronomy, pronounces blessings upon his children, which symbolize the twelve signs. There he speaks of Naphtali as a ‘hind’ let loose; this a very apt symbol of Capricorn, for when the Sun is there at each winter solstice, it is starting a race through the circle of twelve signs, which it must complete in a given time—a year.

When the Sun leaves Capricorn, by precession, it enters the sign Sagittarius, and this is pictured in the symbolical Zodiac as a Centaur, part horse and part man. Thus it shows aptly, the fact that we have evolved through the animal stage into the human. The centaur is in the act of drawing his bow, showing that there is something for which. the human spirit, on its pilgrimage through matter, is seeking, that it aspires to something that lies beyond it, as a lofty ideal, for the bow points upward to the stars.

The next step in human unfoldment is not so much along the physical lines as along the mental, its nature is shown by the Sun’s passage through the sign Scorpio, which is pictorially represented as a serpent or scorpion, emblems of cunning and