Carolyn Joyce, M.A. and Stephen Morrissey, M.A. have completed the visionary task of illuminating the 360 degrees of the zodiac. The Aquarian Symbols were channeled during an intensive ten-day period prior to the solar eclipse of August llth, 1999 in Vancouver, Canada. Carolyn and Stephen are both established poets with published books available. The combination of their astrological and poetic insight with their inspired intuitive abilities provides a view of the degrees of the zodiac which is perfect for this Aquarian Age.

THE AQUARIAN SYMBOLS are exclusively available from the Cosmic Data-Bank: www.cd-b.com

It is important to accurately describe how the Aquarian Symbols came to exist. We usually think in ego terms such as "I painted this picture" or "We wrote this book." But the Aquarian Symbols were not the product of creative writing.

I am a published poet and astrologer. My publications include several books of poetry plus essays on poetics and articles on astrology. I am also a professional editor. Stephen Morrissey is a poet, a college professor of English and Humanities for twenty-five years, and a gifted intuitive.

Both Stephen Morrissey and I are familiar with the writing process. However, the Aquarian Symbols were received, not written. Even 'inspired writing' could not have produced the Symbols.

The Aquarian Symbols were channeled during an intensive ten-day period prior to the solar eclipse of August 11th, 1999 in Vancouver, Canada. We worked approximately two to three hours each day. We began on August 1st, 1999 at 10:15 AM and finished on August 10th, 1999 at 10:19 PM. It was extremely concentrated, exhausting and yet exhilerating work.

Stephen channeled each Symbol and I recorded them. Stephen is not an astrologer. He did not know what sign or degree he was channeling. Stephen had no knowledge of what system I used to keep track of each Symbol as I recorded them. It was not possible that Stephen predetermined any sign, degree or order to what he channeled.

The cohesion the Aquarian Symbols have is their own. It was not by conscious design that the Symbols offer the synchronicity they contain. There are two or three Symbols that describe in detail historical events that did happen, but not until after the Symbols were channeled.

When Stephen channeled he closed his eyes and covered them with paper tissues. He waited until he could see clearly, then he described what he saw in words spoken out loud to me while keeping his eyes closed. He would take a rest and wait until another Symbol appeared. We did not talk about the process of Stephen's channeling or my recording until all 360 degrees were received.

For my part, I concentrated on recording word-for-word what Stephen described. One Symbol came to me before he said it aloud. In all other instances, I kept my mind entirely focused on recording exactly what Stephen told me he saw. I did observe that he had more difficulty describing the last degrees of each sign, although he had no idea why one Symbol was easier to delineate than another. In many instances, the Symbols for the final degrees of each sign are more complex than those for the earlier degrees.

The following is what Stephen Morrissey has written about the Aquarian Symbols:

"I had no way of knowing which degree or which sign was being channeled, or by what method Carolyn was organizing her recording of the Symbols, except that it was by random order. As we channeled the Symbols I began to realize their significance. My concern all along is that they help people in understanding themselves. It is my aspiration that in no way should the Symbols lead people away from being more conscious.

I think the Symbols are a collaboration; they could not have come into being by either of us alone. If Carolyn had not been receptive to them during their channeling, I would not have been able to continue. We acted as mid-wives to their birth.

To visualize the Symbols I would cover my eyes and follow one of two techniques, neither of which I planned in advance. In the first I would sense myself as flying. When I was flying I could look down to where a specific scene would present itself. I was able to look down on beaches, trails, forests, mountains as well as cityscapes. A second approach was to feel I was rapidly descending into a tunnel under the earth. I then had the sensation of stopping as if at a particular destination. In both instances I would describe what could be seen.

These Symbols are an insight into the collective unconscious. They describe universal and archetypal patterns. The Symbols are impersonal but still resonate with emotion for the reader. Each Symbol is like a dream or a riddle, to be analyzed and meditated upon and seen from many perspectives in order to be understood.

The simplicity of the Symbol should not prevent the reader from going deeply into the meaning or the Symbol, just as the apparent insignificance of a dream should not prevent the dreamer from finding the symbolic meaning of the dream. It is my sincere hope that the Aquarian Symbols will help anyone who is interested to become more inner-directed, to offer a balance to our too often outer-directed lives."

The Symbols have been edited slightly from the word-for-word descriptions I recorded at the time; the editing has not altered content but served grammatical structure and flow of language. The Symbols have not been revised in regard to meaning or tone. Stephen Morrissey and I would like to thank Axel Harvey for editorial assistance and for his Introduction. We also thank Jef Simpson for his encouragement and for printing and distributing the Symbols through the Cosmic Data-Bank.

At one point during the ten-day period described above, Stephen asked me what it was we were dealing with. I spontaneously told him they were the Aquarian Symbols. These Symbols for the 360 degrees of the zodiac arrived with their own name. They are now going out into the world with a dedication for everyone.Thank you.

Excerpt from INTRODUCTION by Axel Harvey

Many of the 360 short utterances in this book might be descriptions of a traveller's snapshots--one of them, in fact, features tourists arriving by bus at a museum. But it is obvious that no casual shutterbug would take a picture like, say, the first degree of Aquarius: "A rock rolls down a hill and lands in a pool of water." Such an image could only be caught by a photographer who was expert, lucky, and aesthetically severe.

Two degrees later there is a scene with an inner monologue, "A young woman looks at her name and address on a letter she has just received and decides to move." That Vermeer, you think--but, no, it's more in the nature of a challenge designed to see if the living artist can live down Vermeer. Given that a young female is deciding to move, what can we deduce about the picture in which she finds herself? What would have to be on canvas?

Half a Zodiac away there is 18th Leo, "Someone is lost on a mountain path and is filled with regret," which could almost be a set piece for a Chinese painter. Now there is no doubt that the picture by itself would not be enough. We need the appropriate poem running down alongside the mountain if we want to know about the subject's remorse. It gets most complicated, finally, in those degrees where the presumed thought crowds out the visual matter. Consider the 24th of Virgo, "The gardens are at their peak but there is a rumour of locusts approaching," which is more about rumours than about cabbages or locusts. One realizes that the images could only belong in a novel or a horoscope.

These are not pictures, they are doors. You must enter, in each case, asking yourself what is the relationship between the door and the structure as a whole. Fortunately the latter is given--it is the horoscope--so you are not in the difficult position of the art student challenged to paint a story, or the dilletante unable to read Chinese. You have a large part of the story already; you must use the door, the degree symbol, to modify and extend what is apparent in the rest of the map.

"Now Morrissey and Joyce’s degree set joins the rank of the few that will stand the test of time. It will survive because it avoids pretentiousness, is unselfconsciously contemporary, and above all is apposite."
Axel Harvey

For further information about the Aquarian Symbols you can email:
carolyn@aquariansymbols.com or stephen@aquariansymbols.com

For astrological consultations in person or by phone with Carolyn Joyce, M.A., phone 514-483-4432 or email cj@aquariansymbols.com