3 Times Proves It Again and Again

The Sabian Symbols often perform the most amazing feats, as though they are trying to show us something: to draw us in.

There are so many surprising stories. Amongst my favourites are the following:

At a Mind, Body, Spirit Festival, a young girl, her mother and her grandmother stopped at my stall. I had the Sabian Oracle book and cards on display, with the red (the signs) and the blue (the degrees) cards spread out so people could try them. As many people would do when they didn’t read the sign, they pulled just one card instead of two (a red and a blue are the requisite cards to draw a Sabian Symbol). The young girl chose a red card and exclaimed that she’d pulled her own Sun sign. She was delighted to have just chosen it like that. Her mother then chose a red card and was also amazed to see that she’d selected her Sun sign. The grandmother then chose another red card and bingo! she pulled her Sun sign. The odds against this happening must be very large – and it was a moment of great fun.

The Gate to the Garden of All Fulfilled Desires…

Another memorable time was during a dinner party I attended with three couples and a friend of mine, Kaye. During most of the meal, everyone talked about how wonderful it was to live where we do, in a beautiful beachside suburb of Sydney, Australia. Such a lovely place with life being so free and easy. We discussed how real estate prices had shot through the roof and that it was rather difficult for people to buy a home of their own if they didn’t have a lot of money. After we’d eaten, Kaye suggested that I show everyone how to use the Sabian Symbol book and cards. After explaining how to pick a red card and a blue card, one person pulled Aries 22: The Gate to the Garden of All Fulfilled Desires. I enquired whether they’d asked a question and the reply was that they hadn’t. I explained that the Symbols were saying that they were indeed lucky and had a gracious life. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of the joys we experience in life in order to truly be able to enter through ‘The Gate‘ to a state of happiness and acceptance of the good things. The cards were put down and we talked about other things.

A while later, another person picked up the cards and rather absent-mindedly shuffled them. She said she wanted to try the cards. I explained again how to use them. Think of a question and take a red card and a blue card… she pulled Aries 22: The Gate to the Garden of All Fulfilled Desires. I was rather amused that the same degree (out of 360 possibilities) had been pulled, but I had seen it happen a few times before. I asked if she held a question in her mind. Just as the person who’d picked the cards before her, she said “no”. I said that these types of things often happen with the Sabian Symbols. It’s as if they are trying to get our attention. I examined the Aries card and the card for 22. I wondered if there was something that made those two cards stand out in some way, like a slight bend in them, making them most easily picked. There was nothing outstanding about the two cards. We went on further to discuss how lucky we were in terms of the state of the rest of the world.

Again, the conversation turned to other matters. Some time later, another person picked up the cards and shuffled them, this time for a long period of time. We’d consumed considerable amounts of wine by that time and I was aware that the person shuffling the cards wasn’t really being very serious about concentrating on an issue – he was talking as he handled the cards. Almost automatically, he pulled a red card and a blue one. By now you may have got the drift: he also pulled Aries 22: The Gate to the Garden of All Fulfilled Desires. This was truly astounding and I can’t begin to know how to calculate the odds against such a thing happening three times in a row out of 360 possibilities. The chances of the same Symbol being pulled three times are very slim indeed. I should point out that the cards were only selected three times that evening, all three being the same answer.

Further, this story is also a good example of what can happen when an in-depth answer to situations would have been inappropriate. None of the people who dealt the cards wanted any deep and meaningful advice that evening; it was more of a social bit of fun. However, I would imagine that each and every person sitting at that table had some issue with that Symbol; something would have come up in some way for them.

With the Sabian Symbols, synchronicity can build on synchronicity until entire stories unfold. I’ve had examples so long and involved that they become running stories.

Three Fledglings in a Nest

Another memorable example is the day I was running late to attend my stand at a Body, Mind and Harmony fair in Sydney some years ago. Over the years we’d done many of these types of fairs, selling astrology and numerology reports and promoting the Sabian Symbols. It was on the morning of the first day of the festival that I had to take my daughter, Jess, who was then 13, for an audition in a television series remake of The Thorn Birds, before heading on to the festival. Whilst we went for the audition, a tarot reader friend of mine, Matthew Favaloro, was looking after the stand for me. When we arrived at the stand, Matthew hurriedly said he had something to tell me. He said a woman had come by the stall and had had a cursory look at the Sabian Symbol books sitting on display. Matthew suggested she pick a Symbol from the basket. We’d taken two early editions of the Sabian Symbols book, and, with scissors, cut up the Symbols so that we had 360 x 2 = 720 Symbols written on paper with short interpretations. We had placed the 720 slips of paper, folded over, into a basket, this being two complete sets of the Sabian Symbols. There were written instructions on a sign for people to simply choose a slip of paper, read it and place it back in the basket. The woman decided to have a go and picked Gemini 23: Three Fledglings in a Nest High Up in a Tree. She read through the interpretation:

            “Although there is a feeling of being left alone and neglected, there is still

            a sense of safety by isolation. It may be too soon to break out on your own,

            but after more nourishment, your time will come. Integration of spirit, soul

            and body will lead to being able to fly on one’s own in good time. Discovering

            a whole new sense of being. If negative – wanting to leave the nest before one’s

            ready. Psychological immaturity.”

When she got to the part about “psychological immaturity”, she didn’t like it one bit. She said to Matthew that it wasn’t true; she was quite ready to leave the nest and fly on her own. Apparently she was quite adamant and angry about it. She said that the interpretation was not the right one for her and stood there with a defiant look on her face. Matthew was a bit lost for what to do as he was serving another customer at the time. He suggested she put that slip back in the basket, swish the basket around and pick another slip of paper. She picked again and got the same Symbol – Gemini 23: Three Fledglings in a Nest High Up in a Tree. She made quite a commotion and said to Matthew how ridiculous the message was for her. Matthew handed the woman a deck of the cards, saying that she should perhaps use the method that we usually use to select a Symbol. She chose one red card and one blue one. Again, she pulled Gemini 23 (the “fledgling” degree). Matthew described how the woman became furious and stormed off, thereby proving the issue of “psychological maturity”!

As Matthew was telling this story to me, my daughter Jess ran up to tell us something that had happened on a stand across the hall. Jess had found our friend Chris who was selling sarongs and products from Bali and India. Jess was visibly upset and described how, just a few moments before; a baby bird (a “fledgling”) had apparently fallen out of the ceiling. The festival was held in a huge barn in the Royal Agricultural Showground in Sydney. It had fallen onto a pile of sarongs on Chris’ stand. Jess saw Chris standing with this baby bird in her cupped hands, concern and worry streaming across her face, with tears in her eyes and wondering what she could do with it. It seems that there must have been a nest up in the ceiling of the agricultural barn where the festival was held. The bird must have fallen through a hole in the ceiling, although no one could discern where the hole was. Jess had run back to tell me about the fledgling falling just as Matthew was telling me about the woman that pulled the fledgling Symbol three times.

Further, a woman who was walking past the stall at the moment of Jess telling the story said “I saw the bird fall” – I looked at her, “you saw the bird fall?” – “yes” she said “I saw it fall past my eyes as I was looking at the sarongs”…. The odds against someone not only seeing the bird fall, but actually walking past my stand at that exact moment that Jess was telling the story have to be quiet enormous.

It turned out that the fledgling Symbol had deep meaning for Chris, as she was on the brink of leaving her husband. The Sabian Symbol was also highlighted in her own horoscope as it is her Sun degree Symbol (she has her Sun at Gemini 23).  And further, Jess didn’t get the role in the Thornbirds telemovie as it was thought that she was too young for the role (she was considered a ‘fledgling’).

More fledglings…

I absolutely love Australian magpies – they always give me a lift when I see them. They are very special and have amazing songs – it’s like heaven listening to them. They’re also very intelligent.

I was in the middle of writing my book on the Sabian Symbols a few years ago when Saturn was transiting Gemini 23. The Sabian Symbol for that degree is Gemini 23: Three Fledglings in a Nest High Up in a Tree. I’d been writing about that degree and was staying at my little house up in Sydney’s magical Blue Mountains.  I took a break from writing for a while and went out into the garden to do some weeding and planting. As I walked up the back yard, two white cockatoos swooped past me along with another blur of black and white. Suddenly, there was a thump as a yount magpie hit the trunk of a big liquid ambar tree just a few metres away. There, on the ground, was a very young magpie – it stood up, sort of stumbled around a little and started walking towards me, cheeping and crying to me – it obviously thought I was its mother.

He was very tame and rather fearless and he stuck by my side, jumping into holes that I was digging and generally being quite pushy with me in his quest for worms. I had some organic beef strips in my refrigerator, so I fed him a little (whilst aware that one shouldn’t really feed them too much or too often). When I threw the beef strips to him, he’d catch them perfectly in his beak every time. It became very obvious that these birds are quite intelligent.

A few hours later, we were joined by another young bird and then another. I found myself in the back yard with 3 lovely young magpies all lined up in front of me, calling for food.

For several days, I had a lovely relationship with these birds, but the original guy was the one that really made his way into my heart. He would carol his beautiful songs several times of the day, which is an absolute delight.

I was amazed at the beauty of the universe that Saturn transiting Gemini 23 – The Three Fledglings in a Nest High Up in a Tree – brought these beautiful birds to visit with me – a reward of Saturn.

Unfortunately, as Saturn can often do, they were all taken away. One by one each of the young birds died over the ensuing weeks. One a neighbour’s cat got, the others, I only saw remnants of them.

I felt very honoured to have these beautiful birds spend time with me.

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