Reeling on the razor's edge of non-control between Oblivion and Bliss, we bring life back into balance by letting go, allowing for creative Chaos.

When the Dark Star of Chaos, The Twelvth Planet, bears down upon our world, in its 3600-year orbit of the Sun, Earth is bombarded with destabilizing electro-magnetic radiation, causing great geophysical upheavals—earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, freak weather conditions, monster storms, tidal waves, and cataclysmic floods. The ancient Sumerians spoke of the existence of this planet of cyclic catastrophes, which they called Nibiru. Though long thought to be purely mythical, the objective existence of this enigmatic planet was confirmed in 1983 by a sighting of the IRAS satellite (San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 27, 1983). Modern archeologists who hypothesize that this planet may have played a role in the mass extinction of species that occurred in the Cretaceous Period, some one-hundred million years ago, have named it “Nemesis,” after the Greek goddess of divine vengeance and retribution.

 Elliptically orbiting bodies such as Nibiru, and the various comets, are major “seed” forces from the galaxy, bringing into our solar system from the far reaches of deep space, alien elements and unknown metals, organic sequencings of molecules, and proto strands of DNA—viruses—that lay cold and dormant in the absolute zero temperatures of space as they travel silently from star to distant star, in search of viable hosts and an atmosphere in which to flourish. Thus, the discovery of new comets, and the advent of their cyclical returning, as well as the cosmically greater event of the returning of the planet, Nibiru, stirs the archetypal excitement of a “Second Coming,” and foreshadows the possibility of radical change. These events raise both hope, and fear, in the human psyche, of the possiblity of transcosmic forces taking a deliberate role in human affairs. We see this in the mounting evidence of UFO abductions, and in the shadow cast across history by the Christian concept of the Millenium, and, as we await the final phase of the Mayan “Harmonic Convergence” sequence, slated to occur in the year 2012 CE.

The planet Nibiru, because it tends to create unbalance when its orbit intersects our solar system and its path bears down upon our world as it travels from Pluto inward toward the Sun, is associated with the sign of Libra, the sign of The Balances, and, significantly, the sign of  “the other,” i.e. our extraterrestrial brothers. It is known that the gods, the divine personages of  world cultures and religions, such as those of the Sumerian pantheon, Ishtar, Anu, Enki, Marduk, the Mayan Quetzalcoatl, the gods of the Egyptians, Ra, Osiris, Horus, Isis, Set, the Greek gods, Cronus, Zeus, Athene, Aphrodite, the Celtic Cuchulhain, the Philistine’s Dagon, Shaitan of the ancient Yezidi, and Yahweh of the Tribe of Judah, Buddha, Christ, the Hindu gods and goddesses, Šiva, Kali, Padmasambhava, those wrathful deities of the Bön Pó and Tibet, to name but a few—all had miraculous interactions with humankind, bestowing gifts of culture, social conscience, moral codes, law, art, craftsmansip, agriculture, and, in some instances, demanding worship in return. Since such illuminations delivered of the gods seem to coincide with Nibiru’s perihelion cycle, at which time it is closest to the Sun and which recurs about every 3600 years, may it not be that these were, in truth, extraterrestrial visitors who periodically returned to guide and instruct humankind, and seeming to their visitants as gods—Ancient Nibiruans all—and true bringers of culture to our world? Or is it that they are merely mythic expressions of an ancient memory of First Contact?

Nibiru’s most recent return to our solar system occurred around 100 B.C.E. and probably influenced Gnostic sources. The Sumerian symbol for Nibiru was the eight-pointed star, the same symbol as that of the Star of Bethelehem, the Star of Christ. Was the historical Christ in actuality an ancient extraterrestrial visitor from the planet Nibiru, here to show humanity the error of our ways? The Gnostic symbol for Christ is 888—the universal number—which on digital read-outs, contains all possible numbers from 000 to 999 within itself.

Nibiru’s return to our solar system in 3600 B.C. was carefully recorded in ancient Sumerian sources, and has been interestingly interpreted by Zacharia Sitchin in his Earth Chronicle series.

Currently, (until about 2150 C.E.), Nibiru's cycle is 400 years past its aphelion, moving in toward our solar system from what is its farthest point from the Sun on its long elliptical orbit, similarly positioned as when the Greek Centaur, Chiron, healer and teacher, lived upon Earth some 3600 years ago. This point in the Nibiru cycle brought an evolution in human consciousness, resulting in the shift from Matriarcy to Patriarchy, and the usurpation and decline of the Goddess religions. In about 1500 B.C.E, the ancient island of Calliste, known in later Greek times as Thera, and today called Santorini, exploded in a massive vulcanic eruption, triggering a tidal wave thought by modern oceanographers to have been as much as 300 feet high, and which swept the shores of Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. This tidal wave brought about the destruction of Crete, and caused the rise of the Red Sea which drowned those in pursuit of the Hebrews during their Exodus from Egypt, and was similarly the source of the flood which the Greek Deucalian, son of Prometheus, survived with his wife Pyrrha, and after which they set about to renew the human race.

The Greek goddess, Themis, who may herself have been a Nibiruan, had a hand in repopulating the earth after Deucalion's Flood. “Themis,” meaning “order,” was one of the Titans, or Elder Gods, and it was she who “ordered” the year into thirteen lunar months of 28 days each, making a total of 364 days, with one day added upon the year. The phrase “a year and a day,” means not 366 days as is commonly supposed, but refers instead to Themis' lunar year of 364 days, with one day “left over.” It was the great goddess as Themis who decreed the Island of Illumination, which was the “Isle of Amber,”  the eastern island of Samothrace, to be a sacred place where no reverence would be paid to any deity other than the Great Triple Goddess. Themis' daughters, the Horai exemplified the qualities that Librans, ruled by Nibiru, seek: Eunomia, “lawful order;” Dike, “just retribution;” and, Eirene, “peace.”

It was from Themis that Zeus derived his judicial authority, and it was She who convened the assemblies of the Olympians at which she sat at the side of Zeus as the embodiment of “Divine Justice,” which is the oracular power of the Earth herself. This oracular power, resident in the collective unconscious, was given voice in ancient times via the Delphic Oracle, a gift to Themis herself from Mother Earth. For Libra, sign of justice, was originally a part of the constellation Scorpio known as the Chelae, “The Scorpion's Claws.” Its image was depicted in the Babalonian zodiac as the claws of the Scorpion, a dark and primitive creature of chthonian depths and the collective unconscious, holding the Lamp of Illumination: it is out of connection with deep instinctual life that transcendant wisdom comes.

Libra, sign of relatedness and social contact, symbolic of the human urge to connect with “not I,” with “the Other,” is a dual sign, ruled by Inanna/Ishtar, Goddess of Love, and Goddess of War. Those born with this asterism strongly marked are pulled to create harmony and balance in the human sphere. Librans seek justice in the human realm, they seek a peace that derives from a fair and equitable social order, and laws derived from wisdom. Yet typically, Librans are not averse to fighting to achieve their goals. Gyrating around a central fulcrum, their ultimate goal is that of the Buddhist Middle Path. Yet in an attempt to create balance, to see all possibilities inherent in a given situation, in an effort to be fair and just in their pronouncements, the Libran temperament sometimes falls prey to apparent indecision. More often though, those with inner attunement to the powers of The Balance will be found going from one extreme to the other in an effort to create balance out of the apparent chaos of their acts.

The blind seer, Teiresias, typifies these qualities of balance and fairness, as well as those of duality, and ambivalence. Though born a man, the Greek, Teiresias, was transformed into a woman, passing seven years as a celebrated whore. This circumstance qualified him to pass judgement upon the question put to him by Zeus, as to who derived more pleasure from the sexual act, man or woman. Teiresias, upon answering that woman derived more pleasure, was struck blind by Hera, Zeus’ jealous goddess-wife, for answering so truthfully, yet tactlessly.

The oldest Tarot image associated with Libra is the card called “Justice,” which shows the goddess Themis holding the scales of Justice in her left hand, while the double-edged sword of Truth is in her right. The scales which Themis holds are the scales of Karma, indicating that actions once taken cannot be undone. We must reap the harvest formed by actions taken in the past, as we form our future destiny by actions taken now.  And Libra rules The Balances, the scales upon which the human heart is weighed in the Halls of the Dead as the soul approaches the Egyptian afterlife in Amenta. The balanced feather against which the heart is weighed upon the scales of judgment is symbolic of the Goddess Maat. On Egyptian funerary walls, the monster Amemait, “the devourer,” part lion, part hippopotamus, and part crocodile, is seen to crouch nearby, waiting to eat the hearts of those judged to be among the damned.

Known in esoteric teachings as “Daughter of the Lords of Truth,” “The Ruler of the Balance,” this card is associated with the sign of Libra and the Atumnal Equinox, when, in the waning cycle of the year, Light and Darkness come into a precarious, momentary balance, which then swiftly shifts into the darkening of the light, as the nights inevitably lengthen. The Thoth tarot depicts “Justice” as a dancer poised on toe-tip, wearing the Uraeus Serpent of the “Lord of Life and Death” upon her forehead, and crowned with the plumes of Maat, the Egyptian goddess of Truth and Perfection. The sword of Truth sweeps away clouding emotion, bringing clarity of mind, and ultimately, Illumination. The sword of Wisdom cuts through the Mystery, so that by seeing and accepting the past, we free ourselves from it. Action coming out of understanding brings meaning and value to our lives. In finding our center, our lives come into balance; when all comes into balance, we are ultimately free. Masked and mysterious, this dancer, constantly whirling, dances the dance of the illusion of manifestation, it is the dance of Maya, the colorful dance of life itself, in which all possibilities are enjoyed, in which all things are harmony and beauty, and all manifestations are Truth. Nirvana equals Samsara in this dance of life. All is illusion, no matter how frightening, or appealing, it may seem, where each experience is to be absorbed, transmuted, adjusted, sublimated, and ultimately birthed, into its next manifestation.

“Justice,” “Adjustment,” Atu VIII, of dayside tarots finds its Shadow side in the Tunnel of Lafcursiax, where Themis turns her face to us as Nemesis, “due enactment.”  Born of the blood of Uranus, she is known as “Divine Vengeance,” and as Adrasteia, “the Inescapable One,” who is the oracular Crone of Autumn. With Her, there is no grace, there is no guilt, there is no prophylactic prayer with which to placate the fate which we have ourselves created. Neither Nemesis nor Aidos had their home among the gods, for "only when men become completely wicked will they leave the earth and depart to the company of the immortals," their beautiful faces veiled in white raiment. (EH)

In the Tunnel of Lafcursiax, Inanna/Ishtar meets her dark double Ereshkigal. Maat, goddess of perfection, is also The Dark Goddess, Maut the ravenous Vulture, a tabooed bird, sacred to Osiris, said to be fertilized by the wind, and important to Etruscan Augurs. In present-day Tibet, the dead are left to the vultures still; and in Bombay, the Parsis expose their corpses high upon the “towers of silence,” leaving them to the tender mercies of the vulture clans. In The Eagle's Gift, Carlos Casteneda speaks of “the power that governs the destiny of all living beings,” which he calls “the Eagle . . . [which] . . . is devouring the awareness of all the creatures that, alive on earth a moment before and now dead, have floated to the Eagle's beak, like a ceaseless swarm of fireflies, to meet their owner, their reasons for having had life. The Eagle disentangles these tiny flames, lays them flat, as a tanner stretches out a hide, and then consumes them; for awareness is the Eagle's food. The Eagle, that power that governs the destinies of all living things, reflects equally and at once all those living things.”

Here, in the Tunnel of Lafcursiax, the vulture goddess, Maut, toys with her pet spider, feeding it such  ribbons of flesh, torn from the souls of the living. That She has been doing this from ages past is attested to by the discarded skull of Australopithecus africanus, having a geological age of  about 3 million years. Sparks of human lives are the fuel of her existence, whose origins have been lost in dim mists of time, when the Sons of God, the Nephilim walked the Earth, when Star People came from Nibiru, planet of Balance and Unalance.

The spider is the dark emblem of Typhonian mysteries, of the ancient serpent cult of Obeah, and of the Ophidian current, it is the emblem of the goddess Maat in her cycle of returning. The crazy symmetry of the spider's web spans the abyss of in-betweenness into which we might otherwise fall backwards; crossing from being to non-being, from the known universe into the Aeon of Maat ever spiraling toward us from an unknown future. Hanging upside down, the Spider Queen of Space spins Her web, creating 256 windows into other dimensions, transmission towers in the void pulsing extra-terrestrial energies that serve to erode, then mutate human consciousness: it is the dread voice of Hastur, swirling darkly through the vastness of the universe.