Balancing Between Order and Chaos - Stanley Kubrick's Adaptation of "2001: A Space Odyssey"

By Kamila Lizis

We are moving towards the edge of a frontier where we are called to re-envision the next chapter of our ‘reality’. We have chosen to participate in a world asking us to become dream-shapers, to be the vessels of our imagination, to give the numinous a form. Ask any artist about attachment to form and they will tell you that in the flow of creation you transcend fear of letting go of order and allow wavelengths to spiral through you in chaos, in non-attachment to a certain outcome, in a loudest desire to attune to who you truly are.

Astrology transposes this attunement into a conscious understanding of entrancing and transfiguring experiences just like music holds us through such thresholds. In some metaphysical way they both resonate with each other spiraling within us as rippling cyclical synods and droning whispers of sympathetic resonances without fading away.

Today we can listen to these harmonic sounds of past frontiers and draw insight into how things can be when we once again grace the shoreline of another self-similar frontier. Taking inspiration from Stanley Kubrick (born on 26th July 1928, 13:41, EDT, Bronx, NY (1)) re-envisioning of Arthur C. Clarke’s (born on 16th Dec 1917, 6 am GMT, Minehead, England (2)) “2001: A Space Odyssey”, a movie that uniquely uses music, sounds and silence as powerful transposers between order and chaos, a theme that runs through the life of Clarke as a prophetic, yet experiential, message enabling us to ‘hear’ the deeper undercurrent of a particular cosmic duet, a couplet due to re-unite in February 2026.

Astrology and listening

Despite the valiant attempts and subsequent chagrin of many, astrology cannot be completely explained. It is the key to the liminal world that exists both within and without. It holds the mystery of understanding the world on a deeper level opening us to an immeasurable consciousness and otherworldly resonances, and is a path of the Initiate to a world beyond material and mechanical distractions. In order to appreciate the craft of astrology, however, we have to learn how to listen to it ‘intelligently’ and imaginatively, as it speaks a language of consciousness, embedded in the vibrational wave forms that our celestial rhythms form, as seen from our place in the solar system.

The soundtrack to our times

The genius of Kubrick is that he understands the subtext of Clarke’s writing and has adapted it for the screen, paying special attention to sound, as a medium to transmit the deeper message. He asks his audience to listen to the subtle nuances within Clarke’s novel, plunging the viewers into the potent immensity of uncertainty using original filmmaking techniques to open us up to a world beyond familiar order and harmony.

In the same way that Kubrick undoubtedly heard Clarke’s ‘mulitverses’, reigniting his visions for others to hear and see on screen, astrologers must also be good listeners too in order to hear the perpetually moving Zeitgeist, which is like a soundtrack to our times aligning us with this ‘divine’ vibration.

In the same way that cinema can be merely either for pleasure or education, do we listen to astrology for mere entertainment, draining our emotions or perhaps to better understand the deeper pathways of possibility beyond that of our conscious sensory awareness? The intention of our astrology is a personal choice, but there exists a deeper, more evolutionary transition beyond that of the ego and/or purely predictive matters that is available for us all to hear, for those who take time to listen to the music in the spheres.

A collective spiral

Arthur C. Clarke in 1965
 on the set of filming 2001: A Space Odyssey. He's seen here on the bridge of Discovery with its EVA pods.
Source: CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; originally posted on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/itupictures/16636142906

Arthur C. Clarke's nativity
Source: Astrodatabank

Living as we do within a sea of celestial currents, each ebbing and flowing at their own tempo, the evolution of our collective consciousness morphs and changes is in sync within this constantly pulsating rhythm. Whatever is born of a moment in time, takes on the ‘tone’ of that moment in time, and the individual is imbued with their own perception of that ‘music’.

Whilst the waves created by any two planets aligning differs in the overall context of the celestial waters, we are moving towards a time similar to that of 1917, 1952/53 and 1988/89 on the 20th of February 2026 when Saturn and Neptune align, a time to set sail in unknown waters with only a vast vision of the future to guide us. Conscious co-creative engagement with the unfolding celestial cycles to bring our collective and personal dreams into reality is no mean undertaking, and we can look to those imbued with that quality in the fabric of their being for inspiration as to how they brought forth into reality their inner vision.

The science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke was a visionary creator on a path of exploration of multiverses beyond ordinary (3). His own sense of imaginative architecture (4) prompts us to look at how dreams sparked within the interiority can be heard and how numinous visions rise above written words. While Clarke’s empirical architecture holds space for creation, Stanley Kubrick’s cimematic adaption of his book can serve as an audio-visual guide to help us better the weave between chaos and order.

As astrologers, how can we account for this inner yearning to transcend form in Clarke’s life?

Fixed Fire, or Leo

Walking through a hall of light, a Leonine dreamer weaves in shapeless formlessness. He moves through transfiguring images, engaged in such pure essence of being and imagery so visceral and experiential that he dreams in a palette of most vivid colour and in the vastest scale of tonality.

There is not much form within this hall of light but an elemental source consciousness crackling and a pure essence of light and tone. This is an experience supreme forging untainted consciousness in a dream.

Why? Imagine, a dream-shaper weaving in Leo, also known as Fixed Fire. Immerse yourself in their essence and discover an intimate relationship with the sea of vastness of gradients and sounds, a pure song of spirit and gOd, and imagination that explores the rhythm of eidetic images, humming and vibrating despite looking silent or insulated to the external. Meanwhile, in them a symphony of music roars when anchored securely. In the hearth of this Leonine dreamer spaces of inspiration to create are replete with images animating their interiority and when it buzzes, like an excited wave of fireflies, a Leonie dreamer seeks expression – a personal expression. In A Space Odyssey 2001 these ideas were given a vessel built on understanding through attuning in sound and silence, music and tone (5).

Saturn-Neptune in a Fire element

From order to chaos and vice versa, the Leonine numinosity is given form when Saturn and Neptune merge therein. Visions, like sacred salamanders, climbs a ladder reaching for the firmament, just as the licks of fire reach for the big blue above. It is a pure essence of the spark of light, the spark of tone! Through the framework of Saturn the infinite inspiration of Neptune becomes the response to the ephemeral and nebulous. Then when the tidal wildfire of creation becomes more than one, nothing can contain it - eventually breaking any dams withholding our higher vision and purposeful passion, and the facades, the bondage and the blocks are transcended.

In a sympathetic resonance we are moving through an echo of Vulcan’s hammer, forging a new world from the nascent embers of the flame of consciousness.

While Kubrick adapted Clarke’s hearth of imagination transposing the balance of order to chaos, he puts us through the profound path of letting go that which is stagnant and envisioning a new ‘reality’.

Mercurial resonance

Stanley Kubrick
 on the set of filming '2001: A Space Odyssey.
Source: "Copyright by Warner Bros. Inc.", Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Synastry Clarke (inside) / Kubrick (outside)
Source: Kubrick's time of birth is not given in Astrodatabank, see (1)

Kubrick must have understood Clarke’s continuous idea-making, a consciousness compelled to refining created realities, mediating duality, ascending out from his Leonine world. What is in their synastic resonance that accounts for this simpatico?

There was indeed an illuminating synastic resonance of their minds (6). Moreover, Kubrick’s inspiration must have been wildly ignited with Clarke’s meditations on order and chaos and like a mediator, the director found himself at the heart of the writer’s hall of light burning in the same flame of knowing that in his path he came to reignite Clarke’s cosmic worlds (7).

The world of form is a challenge for fixed fire, as it exists as pure colour and tone. Perceived as insulated, it shows its richness to those who can hear the quiet inner voice. Unheard, Fixed Fire aches in frustration for the anchored experience of light and vision to be expressed vaster than the world of the material offers and it burns for a visceral experience of the coursing movement of spontaneity and vision. It seems, however, that Kubrick listened and heard the microtonal ideas between Clarke’s metaphorical lines. Leo, or Fixed Fire, experiences the moment and journeys with it, becoming its heat and rhythm, then gives that moment expression. This movement of pure fire, light, and sound, is explored in the film and is deftly expressed through the astrology of their relationship.

Silence speaks volumes – Fixity

Kubrick had all it takes to understand Clarke’s vision of order and chaos. The director’s own fixity is homage to the silence that so profoundly pierces the viewer’s perception.

Silence plays a ‘loud’ part in A Space Odyssey 2001, it voluminously ‘screams’ during the transitional shifts as reality is re-envisioned during the movie.

Think of the fixed people in your world. Notice the times they hold space and seem silent. It speaks volumes. Meanwhile their inner world courses in ways other than verbal – notice what they express in colour, music, body language, and telepathy! Kubrick’s fixity birthed a vision broadening the audience’s minds and this benefits in the process of understanding of the movie – his fixity asks us to plunge into intuition and appreciation of the interiority ablaze with eidetic images. We evolve intuitively beyond the usual expectation of seeing and hearing trajectory of the movie on screen.

Fixity encourages a refinement of creativity be our thoughts, our ideas and our visions that ultimately break out in readiness, like silence broken with the sound of dawn. It is quietude that tickles tension to unbelievably insane levels. The recipient pines to see and hear, the excitement rises, and a breaking point emerges having a potential to bring order into chaos.

As viewers of 2001: A Space Odyssey we walk between the worlds of the known and the unknown, the material and the transpersonal, healing the insatiable need for the tangible, the predictable, the harmonious and we find out that art inspires when it engages trust (8).

The 2026 Synod

There is a reason to reflect on this as we become the initiators awaiting the 20th of February 2026 synod. We can sense in the dreaming and the waking world that we are about to experience a new part of our life coming alive, as we now move through the balsamic stage of the waning cycle, arousing our curiosity like fire, as we intuitively feel that we are being asked to trust the bigger dream ahead.

Did Kubrick want the audience to experience the chaos themselves? Did he intend for the viewers to experience order and chaos? Or perhaps he did not intend anything at all? Why did the director choose music, sounds and silence as the main messengers and mediators?

Put it another way, Kubrick echoes the effect in which his films attempt to circumvent an “artificial barrier” of human cognition in favor of an affective reception of his films.
- (J. Sperb)

Interestingly, the director underwent a physical transformation during the time of directing the movie– he literally embodied and externalised a more eccentric (chaotic) expression, enabling his movie to gain a new notion of originality.

From order to chaos

It is essential to emphasise the dramatic segmentation of the movie bringing the audience from a harmonised futuristic world, to the uncertain faith of the unknown environment. Essentially, the aspects of music, sounds, voices and silence capture viewers’ imagination and emotions and deliver them from order to chaos.

As astrologers we know that every new beginning brings us to a threshold and in times of momentous shifts we are offered the creative space of the unknown. To be held in a feeling of the shift from order to chaos, one could take a closer listen to the symphonic scores composed by Gyorgy Ligeti as well as Aram Khachaturian.

The soundtrack gives form for us to touch the transcendental sphere of the film, opening something outside of ourselves, some of it uncomfortable, some intensely curious.

Becoming uncomfortable is an intrinsic part of any major shift. Like a choir singing so powerfully and so loud that it seems like the sound consumes us whole the rising need to change gradually becomes challenging to contain. When a new beginning chimes, the once-gained understanding and comfort slips away. This is partly the way of the Initiate into the vaster understanding. We walk through the portal of purifying fire to meet what aligns with our evolution on the other side.

Just like the harmony of the choir in Ligeti’s compositions becoming unbalanced, morphing into a haunting howl, the ‘artefact theme’ echoes in our minds and the high-pitched voices of singers pierce dissonantly right through us. This fragment of music score exhibits a lack of stability, and the unknown is lingering upon us, inviting into outer-worldly experiences. The climax to the artefact scene comes with a squeaky beeping sound. When it is over, the viewers may be left feeling traumatised, unsure of what they had just witnessed.

Ligeti’s and Khachaturian’s music alerts the audience by alternately cooling and piercing through their perception. Little by little, the chaotic spirit grows and expands inviting us to reflect before February 2026 on how big we can dream for our future.

The experience of 2001 is without a doubt truly unique and compelling. There is something in this movie that is perceivable though a process beyond our consciousness. It happens in the parts of us responsible for abstract thinking. And it is this utter eccentricity that can inspire us to reflect on our own readiness to let go of order to follow the heart and creative force into the Dream we chose to come and experience.

What of this life if we do not open to the possibility of shifts that bring us beyond the comforts we grew used to or bondage of the material?

I do hope that you will watch 2001: A Space Odyssey and listen. As astrologers we can hear so much, when we listen with our intuition instead of our mind. The slow convention of the movie gives us a major space for thinking and analysis but also for a tidal wave of emotive, blazing, inspired reflection. Furthermore, we can derive the significant segmentation of the film which turns from order into chaos. Along with the mediation comes understanding. The grandiose sweeping wave is coming to openly create a new reality!

A new tone of reality - Cardinal Fire

As a boundless possibility of the Arian Saturn-Neptune conjunction approaches in February 2026 are you ready, if not a little unsure or excited, for the movement from order to chaos? What tone will your life gain? Hopefully one true to your creative process, passions; one you already instinctively know that moves through you in the balsamic stages of the impending change; one you might have put on hold but spark by spark it crackles through the blocks, burning away your hesitations. When a spark turns into a boundless flare, it will unhesitantly light you up openly without a doubt revealing your true colour tones. Will you let fear of the unknown shut you out of your true dream or will you allow the rhythm of the evolutionary time to purge the remnants of the old structures, at last offering you to break out fiercely and go with the divinely offered flow?

2001: A Space Odyssey remains a mystery and therefore, the very experience of hearing and seeing it unleashes intriguing inspiration within us amidst the times of balancing order and chaos. It is a guide to help us find form for the numinous, granting permission for all that is not authentic to your creative force to fall way, enabling you to receive a unique vision, whilst at the same time helping you to transcend the fear of the unfamiliar and heralding the evolutionary process that supports you to co-create in unity with others. Perhaps 2001 was written for this time – the monumental 2026 Arian alignment!

Endnotes:
(1) For this article, I offer Stanley Kubrick birth time as 26th July 1928, 13:41, EDT, Bronx, NY
 There are conflicting sources of Kubrick’s birth time. Starkman quotes Neil McAleer's biography "Mary Nora Clarke gave birth to her son on the morning of December 16 1917". Starkman rectified it to 6.03.12 GMT" However, since this is not an interpretation involving his natal angles nor the Moon or other points dependent on the exact time, I consider the chart I included sufficient for this piece.
 (2) Arthur C Clarke’s closest aspect is Saturn BiSeptile ASC showing the embodiment of revelation finding form as within his inner realm of divinity and irrationalism. Aspects made to his Saturn from other planets indicate his unwavering inspiration to explore ever-transforming imaginative realities often border line chaos and otherworldliness that he would constantly refine in his prolific writing.
 (3) Arthur C. Clarke natal Saturn and Neptune conjoined in Fixed Fire, or Leo
 (4) The closest aspect to Arthur C Clarke’s Saturn is a waxing quincunx to Cardinal Earth Mercury conjoined Vega
 (5) Clarke’s and Kubrick’s Mercuries were in a tight opposition in their synastry, and both aligned with the Vega-Sirius axis. In the Blue Rose Astrology Sirius (fixed star at 14 Cancer) is a gateway to 7th dimension among other meanings and the direct opposition of the fixed star Vega (at 15 Capricorn) implies that this axis is accessed through sound, music and chanting.
 (6) Kubrick’s Fixed Fire Evening Star Venus conjoins Clarke’s Saturn/Neptune midpoint at 10 Leo, as well as Kubrick’s Sun at 3 Leo is in an applying conjunction to Clarke’s Neptune
 (7) I am reflecting on the closest synastic aspects between Clarke and Kubrick which are Venus and Chiron aspects between their charts (Kubrick’s Venus Trioctiles Clarke’s, Clarke’s Venus squares Kubrick’s Chiron)
 (8) In Arthur C Clarke’s natal chart Saturn is in a wide opposition to Uranus in Fixed Air, or Aquarius, offering an unorthodox idea of exploring futuristic sounds in a confrontational manner

Published in: Timelords Magazine, November 2023.

Author:
Kamila Lizis - Agent 229 is a Consulting Astrologer based in Co. Wicklow in Ireland. She practices and lives deeply immersive psycho-spiritual Western astrology and often uses sound, music and embodiment in her practice. She holds a Masters degree in Philosophy and Literary/Art Translations from Trinity College Dublin, and a postgraduate degree specialising in sound within the science-fiction genre. She is a performing musician for 20 years. Trained and mentored in the Blue Rose School of Astrology in Ireland, I have been encouraged to develop a unique mantic approach to astrology which has opened up my consciousness to an abundance of immersive practices and advanced astrological techniques.
 Email: liziskamila@gmail.com - Website: https://kamilalizisastrology.com/
 Facebook: @kamilalizisastrology - Instagram: @kamila_lizis

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