The Anthropological Truth of the 12

The Twelve that circumscribe the Center. This is one of the primary Archetypes of the Sacred, and is found everywhere in the world: Celtic Western Europe, Norse Northern Europe, Homeric Greece and Mithraic Rome, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Zoroastrian Persia, India, China and Southeast Asia, the great tribal plains of North America, and the Maya, Inca, Aztec, and Olmec empires of South America. This ancient Spiritual Archetype has endured from remote prehistory, and is still an integral component of modern faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

And this archetype always manifests itself in analogous ways: 12 labors around the triumph of Gilgamesh (from the oldest document in the world, c. 3000 BC), 12 Vedic nobles around the Aryan King (Raj). 12 Norse counselors around Odin. 12 native American tribes of 12 clans each (and the 12 poled Teepee around the ceremonial fire). 12 Inca Emperors around the lineage of the Sun. 12 Imams (descendants) around the Shiite tradition of Ali. 12 Namshans (advisors) around the Dalai Lama. 12 Paladins (advisors) around Charlemagne. 12 knights around King Arthur and the Round Table. 12 Olympian Gods around Zeus. 12 Disciples of Mithras. 12 Retainers around Osiris. 12 ships around the voyage of Odysseus. 12 Generals around George Washington (and 12 U.S. supreme court judges around justice). 12 tribes around the Nation of Israel (and 12 fruits around the Tree of Life - the World Axis). 12 nerve meridians around Ch'i (energizing force). 12 Gates around the Underworld, and 12 gates around the City of God. The list goes on...

In all places, in all times, all peoples have experienced a primal apprehension of the divine and mathematically ideal order of the cosmos; and they sought to emulate it in human society. The numerical Truth we have believed for more than 5000 years is 12. And so we have always reckoned space and time accordingly: 12 hours around the clock, 12 months around a year, 12 heavenly houses around the universe. But why not some other number? Where did this fascination with the number 12 - more ancient than written history - come from? Are there some real truths associated with 12 that are more than merely our interpretation of Nature? Does 12 represent more than just random human whim?

The Natural Truth of the 12

The bible describes God creating the universe in six days (or rotations of the earth), and resting upon the seventh. This became the model for the western week: six days of activity enclose a passive seventh (Sabbath) day in the center. Such human-made reckonings are a reflection of a simple, two-dimensional geometric (or absolute) truth: six perfect circles (or rotations of a line) arranged side by side in a larger perfect circle, exactly circumscribes a seventh circle of equal size. This might be described as the Master Template implicit in The Center. And the three-dimensional corollary to this geometric truth: a perfect sphere is exactly circumscribed by 12 perfect spheres of equal size. 12 surround The One. There is a truth of nature, a transcendent mathematical order that defines the structure of space and time. That Truth is 12.

The ancients saw much of 12 in the universe. The moon is seen as a perfect luminous disk shining out into the terrifying night. Little by little it is consumed by the black sky, until it finally disappears into the death of non-existence. There it remains in the underworld darkness for 3 days. And then this life giving beacon overcomes death, and ascends heavenward to shine out over treacherous waters once more. In one solar year, this lunar resurrection will occur 12 times - with 12 days left over.

Music is mathematics made audible, because it consists of precise numerical relationships of frequency (a vibrating string divided exactly one third to two thirds produces the interval called a perfect fifth, etc.). One octave consists of 12 notes (and contains the familiar scale of 7 tones: do re me... etc.). The color-wheel (consisting of primary, secondary, and tertiary hues) has 12 colors. The double helix of Life, DNA, consists of 4 alternating base-pairs (adenine-thymine, and guanine-cytosine) that spiral upward around a vertical axis. In one rotation, there are 12 chemical steps. (But, of course, the ancients could not possibly have known this.)

Against the fixed stars of the heavens, the ancients saw 7 points of light that were not fixed, and appeared to move about the sky in whirling patterns when observed over many successive nights. In Greek, they were called "wanderers" (planetes). Mercury, Venus, Luna, Mars, Sol, Jupiter, and Saturn. 7 Celestial Deities representing 7 celestial spheres revolving through the 12 constellations around the earth (which corresponded nicely with the 7 tone scale within the octave of 12 notes). The supreme Deity in this pantheon of Gods was Jupiter (Latin form of the Greek Zeus). Its orbital duration is 12 solar years.

All these factors, in addition to its profound arithmetical utility (its many divisors - 2, 3, 4, 6 - make it easy to use), conferred upon 12 a significance above other numbers; it is the cyclic rhythm of space and time, of heaven and earth, and ourselves. It represents a totality: the quest for, and fulfillment of, destiny - the terrestrial human and Celestial Divine.

The 4 Elements

The ancients came to see 12 in the actual material of which all the universe - including Man - is made. They recognized that there are only 4 kinds of natural phenomena: things that are hard, things that are vaporous, things that are fluid, and things that possess force or energy. These "kinds of phenomena" they called The Four elements: Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire. And each element will exist in one of 3 qualitative states: Cardinal-Immutable - creation from above, Fixed-Transitional - preservation from between, and Mutable-Volatile - destruction from below. This produced the 12 Forms of the Phenomenal Cosmos.

The 4 Elements were thought to correspond to 4 of the Platonic perfect solids: tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron. The last of the 5 (and only 5) perfect polygonal solids is the dodecahedron. It represents Quintessence: the Fifth Element that was imagined to be the origin and destiny of - the center and circumference of - the 4 Elements. It has 12 sides.

In fact, the 4 elements were seen to correspond to many things, like a Divine rhythm (which they called the Music of the Spheres) pulsing through the universe. The 4 Directions: North, South, East, West. The Times of Day: The Dawn which grows through the gentle innocence of Morning, to maturity in the Afternoon sun, only to decline into Twilight and darkness. The 4 Seasons: The regenerative Spring which grows to maturity in the efflorescence of Summer, only to descend into Autumn infirmity and Winter death. And ancient peoples recognized that such macrocosmic patterns are a reflection of the human condition: The 4 Periods of Life (Infancy, Youth, Maturity, Old Age) and The 4 Aspects of Mind (Sensation, Thinking, Feeling, Intuition).

Once this correlation between the Elements and Man had been established, it was then easy to identify the certain qualities that meaningfully described both: Dry or Wet; Hot or Cold; Active or Passive; Ascending Dominant or Descending submissive; Penetrating Outward or Receiving Inward. Earth (dry-cold) and Water (wet-cold) are the terrestrial Elements - and Feminine. Air (wet-hot) and Fire (dry-hot) are the celestial Elements - and Masculine. It was thought that the relative amount of an Element present in something determined its nature, all in accord with its Elemental character. And so, as there are 4 Elements of Nature, there are 4 Elements of Human Nature - the 4 Humors: Melancholic Earth - Physical, Sanguine Air - Intelligent, Phlegmatic Water - Emotional, Choleric Fire - Intuitive. And in the same way that the 4 Elements interact to create the 12 Forms of Phenomena, the 4 Humors interact to create the 12 Psychological Types.

Over time, all this analysis evolved into an extraordinarily complex system of interrelated descriptions, an impenetrable maze of temporal correspondences and spacial associations - both real and imagined. We may now recognize this "reading of the stars" as unscientific, but what is certain is that the most brilliantly incisive minds of that age were obsessed with the Zodiac. Scholars possessed of intelligence so keen as to be titans in any era, devoted their lives to the study of this religion found within all religions. And this deeply analytical philosophy of nature has descended to us from remote times, where it continues to inform the fundamental assumptions of the modern mind.

To ancient reasoning, it was different Elements in different quantities that produced all the diversity of Nature, all the variety of human character and behavior. And all the relative motions found in the flux and flow of this diversity, will determine every subsequent event. The 12 Houses of the Cosmos (4 Directions X 3 levels) correspond with the 12 Forms of Phenomena (4 Elements X 3 levels), which correspond to 12 Types of Man (4 Temperaments X 3 levels). The repetition of the twelve-fold pattern found from one level of the cosmos to the next, necessarily means that observations of one strata tell you something about the other 2. Our fates are written in the heavens, in the world around us, and even in ourselves.

Astrology?

Such beliefs seem to us now quaint at best, or misguided at worst. It is difficult for us to understand how a view of reality so obviously erroneous could achieve so much devotion. How can the sky, plus a collection of manufactured correspondences, determine one's fate? The reductionist science that sustains the modern world isn't very effective at describing holistic relationships; but holistically was precisely how the ancients were obligated to perceive their universe. When a particular star rising with the vernal sunrise heralds the planting time of the crops, and thus ensures for the community another year of survival, macrocosmic events seem very immediate to the microcosmic concerns of man. When your only clock is the sky, and you live or die by a reckoning of the heavens, you feel profoundly the penetrating threads that bind you in this vast interwoven tapestry of interdependent energies. When seen in this context, one realizes there is an intimate relation between the order of the universe and the order of Man - as it is above, so too is it below. The order of the Heavens is 12, the order of Nature is 12, and the order of Man is 12. This ancient body of knowledge is a recognition of this divine relationship, and is thus meant to represent a comprehensive description of the cyclical pattern of spacial and temporal laws in all of God's creations.

This insight into nature, gathered from literally thousands of years of observation, was eventually codified into an empirical science; in Latin it is know as "Knowledge of the Heavens." Astrology - the study of the 12 - has been a source of both scorn and reverence for a long time. By rational objectivists rooted in the material world, who can only accept what is concrete, it has been entirely dismissed as preposterous and irrelevant: "How can the position of a star 100 trillion miles away possibly affect events on earth? How can everyone born the same day have the same destiny?" By intuitive subjectivists on a quest in the ethereal domain, who can never accept what is concrete, it has been entirely embraced as Divine Word: "All children possess the traits of their lineage, carry the history of their land, and are subject to the same patterns of force that affect all things everywhere. We are the progeny of the heavens, and are bound to them, as all children are, to their parents."

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between these 2 extremes - which are, after all, merely the ends of a single continuum. No rational argument can be made for the veracity of astrology, and yet as a typology of human behavior and potential, it is surprisingly accurate. Beliefs can persist only so long as they provide something of importance and relevance to the believer. Otherwise old beliefs are dispensed with as easily as the music of the previous generation. For reasons we may never truly understand, the study of The Twelve endures.

The Zodiac Mandala

The Zodiac is an illustration of this Twelve-fold Principle of Nature, a pictorial representation of the cosmic process - from initiation to resolution, from the beginning of the cycle, to its inevitable end. By ascribing to each step a distinct, defining quality, the ancients revealed a 12 stage Process of Transformation to which everything in Nature is subject: phenomena begins in one form, and over time becomes other forms, and ends as yet another form - which is, in turn, the beginning of some new phenomena. Spirit becomes matter. The One becomes many. Idea becomes realization. And Involution - the materialization of things, becomes in time, Evolution - the spiritualization of things.

The Zodiac describes not only the cosmological conditions that together constitute the Wheel of Time, and the natural conditions that together constitute the world, but also the personalities that together constitute a community. And most relevantly, the zodiac was meant to instruct the initiate along the journey of spiritual development, by articulating the changes in body and spirit that together constitute a life. In this way, the Zodiac is equivalent to a Mandala (Sanskrit for magic wheel): a labyrinthine circle that serves as an aid to meditation. And the object of meditation is The One in The Center.

If all the universe is revolving (as it very much appears to do from our small perspective here on Earth), and everything is perpetually in motion towards what it is becoming, then nothing can be seen for what it actually is. What meditation seeks is contact with that which is not revolving, not moving, not becoming. And if the universe is revolving, then there is a stationary point in the center that is eternally motionless. This is the Lotus, the Axis Mundi, the World-Mountain, Paradise: the infinitely quiescent, focal nucleus of existence, to which is fixed the entire whirling hurricane of the universe. This is where truth is found. Clarity where all was blurred. Eternity where all was evanescent. The Absolute where all was relative. One where all was many. The Still and Silent. Beauty. Truth. God.

The Great Cycle

There is another important cycle to which the Zodiac refers: the Great Year (sometimes called the Platonic Year). In 1998, sunrise on the vernal equinox (the first day of Spring, March 21, the point in the Earth's journey around the sun at which night and day are of equal duration) will occur in the constellation of Pisces. This it has done for the last 2158 years. Before that, the vernal sun rose in the constellation of Aries. And on March 21, 2000, it will rise for the first time in 23 760 years in the constellation of Aquarius. A slight wobble in the Earth's axis causes a phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes. The apparently fixed heavens in fact slowly move, shifting 1 degree of arc every 72 years. And because each House of the Zodiac covers 30 degrees of arc, the vernal sun will rise in a new constellation every 2160 years (this number is, coincidentally, the exact diameter - in miles - of the moon. At the moon's closest approach to the earth, called the perigee, the distance from the surface of the earth to the surface of the moon is 2160 X 100 miles. The sun, in its great orbital journey through the galaxy, travels at 2160 X 10 mph. And in recognition of these interesting arithmetical truths, our 24 hour day contains 2160 X 4 (times of day) X 10 seconds).

One degree of arc every 72 years - roughly, one very long lifetime by ancient reckoning. It seems impossible that the civilizations of early antiquity could have made observations with sufficient precision to detect this surpassingly small variation in stellar orientation. And yet, we know they did, because the geometry of the Great Pyramid possesses many repetitions of these very precise precessional numbers. It was, for some reason, very important to the first architects that the geometry of their sacred structures reflect the geometry of the Transformation of the Cosmos - a 12 stage journey that occurs one 2160 year step at a time, in a cycle of 25 920 years (this number corresponds to the ancients' calculation of the diameter of the earth in miles. The mile (in Latin, "mille") was said to measure 1000 paces of the Roman Legion; it is, in fact, a far older measurement. It was designed to be of a length such that 25 920 of them would circle the earth. A later readjustment of this unit caused its former accuracy to deviate by 4%: the diameter of the earth is 24 902 modern miles).

These 12 epochs are called The Ages of Man, and the character forms of the Zodiac describe them as well. Our current Age, Pisces - a water sign - is the last sign of the Zodiac. It symbolizes an ending, a dissolution, a time of sleep before reawakening in a new form. Some believe this must mean the impending end of time, and disastrous geological changes and catastrophes will eradicate the human infestation of the world (or the impenitent sinners of the world, depending upon what you read). Others believe only that our current form of civilization will disappear, as a new one emerges. What kind of world might that be? 2000 years ago, Someone told us - and we have been waiting for an Arrival ever since...

The Return

Very near the beginning of the Age of Pisces, a small Child was born in a manger - on December 24, 3 days after the winter solstice, 3 days after the solar year had disappeared into winter death. The world of antiquity also died on that winter solstice, and after 3 days in the underworld, it witnessed the Birth of a Savior - whose emblem was the sign of the Fish: Pisces. The Child grew to be a King of Kings, and in His court were 12 Apostles. Through His Supreme Love, a way of liberation was shown from the inertial chains of the physical world, a way to the Domain of Infinite Spirit. And He gave His life that we might know His Truth. He was planted in the ground (like a seed) upon a 4-pointed cross - Divine Man, nailed there upon the symbol for the union of Heaven and Earth. In that moment of moments, where the destiny of the next 2000 years was decided, time stood still. The universe stood still. All creation was transfixed on the center of Cosmic Destiny: there, on a shaft impaling the earthy flesh of Golgotha, was a man who became God, bleeding on the Axis of the Universe.

He is said to have died at the vernal equinox, on a Friday. His body was taken from the cross, and hidden reverentially in the dark womb of a cave. There, just as the winter sleeps for 3 months, just as the moon sleeps for 3 days, so too did He remain in the underworld darkness for 3 days. And when the moon was full, He walked upon the Earth once more, soon ascending upward past the Summit of the Cosmos, through the Gates of Eternity to Paradise beyond. With that Vernal Resurrection, so too, was born the New World - the world of God's Promise of Salvation, of God's promise to the many that they shall touch The One, of God's promise to return...

That Seed, planted upon Calvary so long ago, is still waiting to bear fruit... It seems that it was not meant to germinate in Piscean ground, and must sleep a while longer. But perhaps our Age of History will be the last material epoch in human development. Perhaps our human rapacity will finally sleep, and that Piscean Seed of Idea, will fructify in the Aquarian Womb of Realization.

There is a cleansing that must transpire before such an Awakening can occur, some process by which the avarice and malevolence of humanity is removed. The symbolic mechanism by which this objective is achieved is well known to all the religions of the world; it is another of the Primary Archetypes of the Sacred: The Flood. In more than 500 ancient stories from around the world, what is old and worn out is washed away and destroyed by a global deluge. And yet, when those consuming waters recede, there is new fertility is found in the soil, a spectacular new potential for Life. Thus the old world is but the seed of a new. The Flood is the Earth itself returning to the womb for regeneration and rebirth.

And so we see here a cleansing of the Piscean world, with a few artifacts of that Age still visible beneath the Aquarian overgrowth. Swimming in 2's are 40 fishes - one for each night and day it rains. New apostles gather in the Sacred Grove wherein they seek communion with the Divinity of Nature. The aurora of a Transcendent Beacon then shines through from the center of existence, and illuminates the pastoral tranquility of their ocean temple. And from that blinding light comes a shimmering Apparition of iridescent Perfection: the Kingdom of God is come. The curving arcs of great sheltering wings form the Vesica Pisces: 2 circles that, like the conjunction of 2 worlds, intersect around the irresistible gravity of Her Will. And thus, with a gesture, Heaven and Earth are united. Where there was only the burning desert of the world, now there is an infinite Oasis of Spirit. Where there was merely nature, now there is Absolute Quintessence. Divine Idea is Realization, and all the labors of the cosmos are done. The terrestrial and the Celestial become One Garden in Transcendent Paradise.

But this is not the end. As God sustains the Cosmos, the Cosmos, too, sustains God. As one thing ends, yet another begins. And so, as we are told in the sacred stories that God has provided for us, the will of the universe shall be done: even in Paradise, someone must break the unbroken circle; someone must turn away to embrace a new and unknown future...

Personal Notes on The Return

I chose my favorite number at age 8 - long before I knew anything about the spiritual import of such things. My favorite hockey player wore it on the back of his jersey: #12. The length of time I worked on this painting: 12 months. And of The "Goddess Series" paintings, The Return is # 12.