The Black Tambourine | Strings Of Apollo As

I'd like to share a short allegory I wrote that I think helps illustrate one way I imagine how astrology operates on a metaphysical level. It expands on a common metaphorical relationship between astrology and music. My purpose in writing it was to explore and reflect upon my own personal relationship with this poetic idea.

....Pythagorus quote here... and others...

THE BLACK TAMBOURINE

In a vast, dark arena, there is a stage. Musicians are on the stage, each with a different instrument. A rhythm is ticking. Ethereal feathery drones drift in the empty spaces between each beat.

A low billowing tone blooms a fundamental note and the musicians begin to play, rhythmically unifying the field. A voice a few octaves higher fades up in tight syncopation through the rhythmic weight now in place and filling the arena.

Wider and deeper layers of harmony emerge. Over time, the whole wobbles in an out of tune and tempo. Another player adds their polyrhythmic touch. Then another, and another. This goes on for millions of years.

Now imagine A Visitor appears in the arena where this music has been unfolding and morphing for millions of years. They walk into the center of the stage, surrounded by the players and become engulfed by the mesmeric sound.

A black tambourine ringed with small gold cymbals appears in the visitor's hand. They try to drop it. It is warm becoming warmer. But they are unable to release it, as if it forced into their fist by some unknowable power.

The small gold cymbals on the black tambourine begin to rattle and vibrate sympathetically with the music enveloping the stage. Compelled, the visitor closes their eyes and begins to play the black tambourine at the center of the stage, losing themselves in the rhythm and melody of the passing moments.

This goes on, for a time.

Eventually, the key and time signature shift, redirecting some of the players to different places on the stage, opening up a transition in the music, forcing the visitor to either adapt, evolve, collapse, or cease playing the black tambourine altogether.

The visitor collapses. One of the small gold cymbals cuts their hand. It's not long before it heals and the rhythm is found again, but the visitor longs for the music they were lost in before the shift to return.

This happens over and over again; each time with varying responses.

Years pass and the transitions and shifts become somewhat predictable, foreshadowed at least. The visitor manages to adjust to the unending transitions and evolves into the best black tambourine player on the stage, though they are the only one.

More years pass. The visitor’s hand has slowed.

The black tambourine is cracked and chipped, most of the small gold cymbals are scattered across the stage like coins. The unending music is softer and fading. Soon

the visitor can't hear a thing.

They open their eyes, after all this Time.

In the vast, warm dark of the arena, the stage the visitor once stood in the center of is now a small bright star disappearing in the distance. It is silent and dark.

Something turns the visitor in an unknown direction. They see a different, new bright star approaching, the silence dissolving into a growing as yet unheard music.

A voice says Here, Love: pick your new instrument, learn it, and go play again.