Helena Roerich (February 12, 1879 – October 5, 1955)

Of course I’m going to look at this person: she was instrumental in Nicholas Roerich’s spiritual mission, and she was a mystic, a dreamer and a spiritual writer in her own right.

Helena Roerich states in one of her writings that she has Aries Rising. That inspired one astrology site to rectify her time of birth to 8:46 am, in order to place the Ascendant in the very middle of Aries. I’m going with that time, too, but perhaps it should have been more finely tuned.

The result is a Yod, pointing at Saturn, made up of inconjuncts to the Moon and Uranus. Could this be indicative of her connection to the Spiritual Teachers of Tibetan Buddhism? I think so.

Moon Inconjunct Saturn

This aspect usually means that your need for emotional security conflicts with your need to live with the world’s demands. Each of us needs to be accepted and loved for what we are, in order to have enough self-confidence to deal with the world. But we also need to learn to live with out own life situations in order to survive. In other words, we have to realize that we can’t have everything we want. With this aspect, these two needs are working against each other. Probably you will satisfy one of them at the expense of the other.

Saturn Inconjunct Uranus

If either of these planets is near conjunction or opposition with the Ascendant or Midheaven, this aspect indicates a serious tension in your life between freedom and restriction. Many people have this conflict, but in your case the tensions may be so severe that you express them physically as muscles tension and possibly nervousness. You feel that somehow you must keep everything in your life under tight control, that if you let go, the whole structure will fall apart.

When I first read the title of this painting, I thought: ‘That can’t be right…’ As with all translations, sometimes the nuances are lost. Ten years earlier, a song was written with the lyrics, “He’s got the whole world in his hands…” and I suspect that is what Roerich intended with this painting. All he did was change the gender, perhaps as a homage to his wife, Helena.

The Banner of Peace

These days we have all sorts of peace flags, but Roerich painted a picture in 1932 which depicted a Banner for Peace. Here is the painting called “Madonna Oriflamma”.

I tried linking this post with a description of the painting and got error messages. What is ‘someone’ trying to tell me? Hmm. Let’s try it again, here:

Roerich depicts Madonna in purple, the color reflecting Genesis. In the hands of Oriflamma, the Banner of Peace is stretched, expressed through the symbol of the trinity. The artist emphasizes the importance of the “Banner”, and shows that the Banner has been given to us by the Almighty. It is a way, an idea of ​​evolution and people need to comprehend this idea, its movement, without mixing all this with a low, worldly understanding

https://en.opisanie-kartin.com/description-of-the-painting-by-nicholas-roerich-oriflamma-madonna/ (use this link at your own risk)

Well, none of this would have come about without the love and support of Helena.