Enlightenment through Astrology

Astrology is a language of metaphor and symbolism and can be understood best as a tool for self-reflection and inspiration. Its foundation sits firmly on the universal idea that everything is connected, relative and interdependent with the circumstances that create them. Therefore, the knowledge of Astrology begins with the Macrocosm of the solar system and points directly to the inner world of your own psyche.

Your experience of life begins with a child's openness and ability to merge with the whole of humanity. But soon, as you begin to learn about your environment, you pick up clues that the world isn't always what it seems. You quickly loose that child's openness the moment you experience the lessons of pain, deprivation and suffering. You can easily become fixated upon the notion that certain things, like family, are permanent and that change seems out of your control.

The careful observer will of course understand these are illusions and that all things change and interact interdependently with everything else. A scientist will describe this as the law of cause and effect: every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. Other people call this karma, but whatever you call it, it is really just the idea that nothing is permanent and everything affects everything else.

So, when things change that you think of being permanent, your realization may come as a nasty shock. You may become angry and upset when things don't meet your expectations. You may react negatively, but doing so emphasizes the gap between reality and your expectation. Stepping back from this state, you may come to understand you are attached to a belief that everything is isolated and permanent, and grasping at these illusory beliefs only confirms your experiences of pain and frustration.

Albert Einstein is attributed to have once defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." Grasping at beliefs that you know are false, even when they are convenient or form a foundation for unrealistic expectations, will eventually lead to a life of quiet desperation and unhappiness. Astrology, being based on the notion of change, can be a way to reflect and analyze your behavior, learning through self-awareness to open yourself to new unexplored potentials.

Despite popular beliefs about it primarily involving prediction and fortune telling, in fact, astrology only emphasizes the influences of the present and points to how these change in the future. Prediction is developed from looking at the past and judging how human nature in the present may play out in the future. What is contained in your birth chart isn't really important; that only represents the basis that you've built your personality upon. What is important is who you are now and how you project the knowledge that is found in past of your birth chart on the influences of the future. What you do now affects your present more than where you began your life or where it will end.

Memories are important to Astrology in that they contain the life lessons that shaped who you are today. For example, if your parent spanked you as a child, then you know not to trust and to withhold your love from those who hurt you, especially those in authoritarian positions, which can further determine how you socialize in the world. Likewise, if your parent worked outside the home you may feel that you are not worthy unless you contribute to the financial well being of your family, also determining your work ethic and ability to meet your family's needs. While these are somewhat complex assumptions they are supported by psychological profiles, which is a direction Western Astrology has been leaning for several decades now.

Life lessons, though, are not an immediate knowledge; they develop over time with the accumulation of positive and negative experience. These can be developed through therapy with a psychologist or psychiatrist, meeting with an astrologer, talking to a spiritual or religious authority or developing a personal philosophy of one's own. Organic wisdom allows you to reflect on events of your life and transform them into a realization of self-compassion and personal enlightenment. Applying self-wisdom in a skillful manner can lead eventually to the beneficial experiences of happiness, liberty, love, empathy and deeper wisdom.

Why get upset when life forces seem against you? Patience is essential, especially with interpersonal experiences; but applying self-knowledge skillfully allows you a chance to change things to your benefit. Developing external wisdom leads to inner insight; inner wisdom generates greater freedom. Self knowledge reflects on past experiences, recognizing the growth process and interdependence of your own identity. Eventually the irrational reactions and responses that are self-detrimental will slow and then stop. And that is when you wake up and realize it is good to be alive.

Ancient Knowledge Initiation

Although I will be including earlier posts from my now DreamWidth account (formerly @ LiveJournal) I wanted to mark when I began this blog with a post. This morning was the Sturgeon Moon eclipse in Pisces which has been discussed at length on many astrological blogs. I woke early, not really intending to, but my sleep schedule has been disrupted this month so it seemed something reasonable to do. I went out to view this beautiful event, catching the beginning of its waxing phase around 4:45am. The morning light of the Sun, just under the eastern horizon, shone off a thin sliver of the Moon, while the shadow of the earth obscured its face with a dusky grey reminding me of the murky depths of a polished obsidian mirror.

Since I've been studying the Maya Tzolk'in I am regularly astonished at how celestial phenomena can correspond with appropriate symbols in the sequence. For example, today is "Ca Lahun Etz' nab" or "Twelve Flint" (which could have specific meanings as a knife or a mirror). I have previously interpreted this as a day for self-reflection or self-understanding. As this eclipse falls in the beginning degrees of Pisces, interpretations of some astrologers I read online have focused on this same quality of self-reflection. I'm not sure what to make of this myself as I come to these realizations out of a pure associative imagination, so I don't always know what is real or even what I believe. Do I believe what I see in the mirror or what I already know is true?

Rather than going to bed again after viewing the eclipse, I stayed up reading a book by John Townley on astrological life cycles which presented a method for constructing biorhythm-type charts for the longer planetary cycles, based on house dynamics. I have read that biorhythms follow cycles for the Sun, Moon and Mercury, corresponding with the physical, emotional and intellectual cycles respectively.

Very interestingly, a chart based on my second house cycle (resources) showed me various transits to Jupiter's cycle that seem to correspond with relationships I have begun in the recent past. In my natal chart, Jupiter, the planet of expansion and luck, appears in my seventh house of relationships suggesting my ability to form fortunate connections with the people who engage me intimately. As an example of the transits I was discovering with this "resources biorhythm", when Jupiter's cycle crosses Uranus's cycle (this could have been a near transit, I'll have to look closer at the exact information) I met astrologer Mark Borax, who taught me sound but definitively Uranian aspects of astrology.

Midnight in the Eternal Soul Garden

Knowing the Tao,

The being and the non-being,

The water and wind,

The yin, the yong;

This is everything and

Nothing at all.

When I close my eyes to meditate I can go to my calm place,

Only that is being…

Once I am there, I easily slip into non-being

Where I cease to be,

Where time does not pass

And interruption is only the next moment

When I am being again…

Like a bit of bark on the surface of a vast pond

I bob and dip between

Being and non-being,

Spanning consciousness and sub-consciousness

Experiencing each in a similar way

I dip and bob through successively

Higher and lower levels of consciousness.

As I rise, I meet the ego

On the threshold of self;

As I submerge, I seek antithesis

Encountering my deepest attachments…

Too often getting tangled in the strings.

Fourteen degrees Taurus—an old lady selling bunches of violets on a street corner

I've felt old most of my life,
The time spent figuring out
What I've always known:
That the older I get the less I know;
That the more I become comfortable in my own skin,
The stranger and more grotesque the World appears.

How strange to find myself at a crossroads
And barely able to satisfy
To always be comfortable is a skill,
A blessing…

But then who wants to be comfortable in a storm
or a swirling vortex?

Title quoted from "Degree Analyses Part II: Chandra Symbols In the Horoscope" by John Sandbach

Mercury Stations Direct

Mercury stations Direct motion at about 4:25PM today. This begins the third and finale phase of Mercury's third retrograde this year, retracing his zig-zagging path through the zodiac. The first phase which covered the same degrees Mercury will now be traversing, occurred before Mercury stationed retrograde and was a preperatory sequence emphasizing the issues we might encounter as obstacles during the retrograde period.

This initial period began October 8th and lasted three weeks until Mercury began its secondary phase of retrograde, on October 29th. Often the secondary retrograde phase is the only phase noted by astrologers; the initial and final phases, being direct motion, are largely ignored because Mercury works the same as it does any other time it is moving direct. But in order to minimize anxiety and obstacles during the retrograde phase as well as maximize your energy and focus during this often troubling period, you can track this energy through each phase as a way to learn how it manifests in your life.

Mercury is said to be the messenger of the other planets and therefore influences our methods of communication and ability to communicate with each other. Retrograde periods are supposed to bring difficulty and disruption of electronic communication, rerouting and mis-delivery of mail and shipped goods, as well as corruption of data and details. I'm not convinced that this is the only time these things occur, but I have noticed that when Mercury stations retrograde people tend to be more aware when communication goes awry.

It is interesting to note the symbol systems that are often used to identify individual degrees. For example, the Sabian symbol for 10 degrees Scorpio, where Mercury is stationing direct today, is "At a family dinner, the son negotiates with his father for the use of the car, while his younger sister is grounded for having sassed her father." Sabian symbols were developed in the nineteen twenties by astrologer Marc Edmund Jones and his student Elsie Wheeler as an exercise in psychic recall. An explanation for this symbol given by Martin Goldsmith in his book The Zodiac by Degrees is "asserting one's individuality, but respecting the basic requirements of the group."

Another zodiac degree symbol system I've been studying is the Chandra Symbols developed by John Sandbach from Chaldean astrological traditions. The Chandra symbol for 10 Scorpio reads, "On a human nose a wart that turns into a diamond." Ellias Lonsdale in his book Inside Degrees, describes this degree pertaining to "destructive patterns come around to regenerative places when they are persisted in tenaciously, yet with an eye toward the destructive patterns destroying themselves."

One way to look at these degree symbols is how they are extrapolated from planetary rulerships. John Sandbach identifies the dwadashamsas where 10 degrees Scorpio is as being influenced by Leo. This elaborates the above explanations of this degree as being the Sun (which rules Leo) interacting with Mars (which rules Scorpio) or issues of actions (Mars) encountering our self identity (Sun).

The degree where Mercury initially stationed retrograde during this cycle was 26 degrees Scorpio. The dwadashamsas where this degree appears is influenced by Aquarius, which is ruled by Saturn. Therefore this would deal with issues of actions (Mars) encountering limitation (Saturn). The Sabian symbol for 26 degrees Scorpio is "before dawn, a Native American chieftain oversees the silent dismantling of an encampment of tepees." Martin Goldsmith says of this, "Team efforts." The Chandra symbol for 26 Scorpio is "a she-wolf. Her udders full of milk." Lonsdale says, "bearing within you something vast and wild and true."

Obviously these symbol systems are not easily applied, but between the various examples one can surmise the emphasis and focus of this Mercury retrograde cycle as dealing with limitations on actions which can lead to actions based on self identity. In the realm of communication, applying these principles well can only improve your overall relationship with the universe.

Another note that leads back to my studies with the Meso-American sacred count of days is that today is Hun Ix or One Jaguar, beginning a cycle of spiritual transformation. Mercury's attribution within the Tarot is the Magician and Jaguars are revered in Meso-American culture as magical shape-shifters who often appear as spirit guides to other dimensions. Therefore there is some correspondence between astrological symbols and the symbols of the Tzolk'in.

On Masks and Magic

Back in 2003 I'd been invited to attend a men's spirituality event in Canada. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend, and instead wrote this article with the research I'd done for the workshop in which I'd been asked to participate.

From the Tao Te Ching...

We shape clay
to birth a vessel,
yet it's the hollow within
that makes it useful.

—Lao Tzu
Trans. by Ralph Alan Dale