9) Sagittarius
Direction: south-south-east
Period: November 23 – December 23
Element: Mutual Fire
Planet: Jupiter, Neptune
The Day gets shorter until the Night is an entire 16 hours long, while the Day lasts a mere 8 hours at the end of the period of Sagittarius – at winter solstice – after which the ascension of the Day begins again.
Plant life has died away, hidden, it survives in the underground, where it can’t be seen. Seed, which fell into the ground in the period of Scorpio, dies, being transformed into a new life. “A desire for the light and the sunshine” wakes up slowly in the sprout beneath its envelope/shell and it swells up until it has power to break through the cover of the seed at the end of Sagittarius.
The last step of the autumn experience leads to the winter solstice. Again, it’s a situation analogous to the opposite sign of Gemini, not in the sphere of individuality, however, but of collectivity. Sagittarius brings understanding into the infinite complexity of human processes, working with the absolute categories of the Night. Its most basic attribute is the unrestrained Mind, hovering on wings of freedom over all frontiers.
On the basis of Scorpio’s experience, Sagittarius finds the Idea – a concrete Plan how to make the vision seen in Libra (and deeply experienced in Scorpio) real and general. Therefore this mutable fire sign is the most mature but also the most restless and expansive of the fire signs. It is a sign of distant voyages, expansive mind, freedom, great ideas, ambitions, faith, hope and spiritual struggle. With Jupiter as its ruling planet, Sagittarius is always seeking the bigger picture, the meaning of life, greater wisdom, more knowledge, more experiences and more adventures into the unknown. It is the journey itself, rather than the goal, which is important for this mutable sign. The sheer scale of Sagittarius, its generosity and benevolence, its hurricanes and tornadoes, can be overwhelming, and the explosive temper, quickly spent, can nevertheless leave the more sensitive signs shaken for some time afterwards.
In Prague Zodiac, the boundary between Sagittarius and Scorpio is marked out by the brewery U Fleků or by the churches of the Holiest Trinity and Ascension of Our Lady in the street Na Slupi. The borderline between Sagittarius and Capricorn goes through the New Town Hall Tower and – of course – through the church of St. Stephan in the settlement Na Rybnicku, as it is the solstitial line.
In the area of Prague this sector is visibly the anti-pole of the field of Gemini. There the process of symbiosis was gentle, intimate, within the arm’s reach. Here, on the contrary, we meet wide views and large-scale projects.
In our walk 5 you will become acquainted with the New Town of Prague, stretched in the zones of Sagittarius and Scorpio. It was founded by Charles IV and his mysterious architect in 1348 – 1351. We don’t know the architect’s name but it’s clear that he must have been (besides the king’s probable strong input) a great Master of Mind and a real visionary. The thing is that the foundation of the New Town was the most ambitious project of Europe’s medieval urbanism ever - with the largest square in the entire medieval Europe and with a ground plan that fulfils even today’s standards of modern urbanism. It can be said that the first modern city of Europe arose here in medieval times. The street layout has remained practically unchanged, only modern buildings replaced the older ones, and much of Nové Mesto has a 19th century city style more so than the other districts – despite its foundation is 500 years older.
Those able to peep under it will be pleasantly surprised. Indeed, besides its highly broadminded futuristic and practical features, there was something else that the modern urbanism and architecture in general already lost: – the touch of mysticism, magic and transcendence incorporated intrinsically in the very DNA of its streets, squares and buildings. The thing is that the foundation of the New Town was also based on deep mystical principles (from magic geometry constellations of churches over to the use of numerology present in the town’s scales and sizes) and it proves that the architect represented a heritage of immense mysterious knowledge of ancient constructors of towns and gothic cathedrals (reportedly having been passed over from the ancient Egypt, Judea, Greece and Rome).
As a part of the walk called The Mystery of the New Town, you’ll have a chance to admire an effort of Charles IV and his architect to make a copy of The Holy Jerusalem - when they were building New Town and attempting to hide other enigmatic messages into it. For more information see the section PRAGUE ZODIAC WALK 5.
Further, the mutual fire of Sagittarius also points to the moving torch of a candle-lit procession of free-minded students in November 1989, which culminated in the Velvet Revolution (see more in Capricorn). (As you may know from, according to the zodiac symbolism, Sagittarius refuses to be trapped either physically or intellectually, and as soon as something threatens to become mundane or routine or even totalitarian, he will break through to the next thing, chasing the next horizon and the infinite Freedom.)
Which is very beautifully expressed in another astonishing example of Prague Sag: The thing is that the Sagittarius of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, whose activity is linked to this part of Prague, which is also displayed in the horoscope of his birth. It was where he made the decisive breathtaking breakthrough in his thoughts that lead him to the General Theory of Relativity. Which, to a certain extent, could be also called The General Theory of the Wheel :-). (It is a Sagittarius theory, of course, because in Sag the integration of the opposite sign of Gemini typically brings a more objective, rational approach and an appreciation of the possibility that truths can be partial and multiple and that other, equally valid opinions and views exist. – Can you detect the scent of General Relativity here? :-) You do… And don’t forget: Sagittarius in us will always be seeking a more universal or philosophical dimension to life.)