Depth Astrology

It’s impossible to create a closed shape with only two lines, making the triangle the most basic closed shape after the circle.

Thinker extraordinaire Euclid of Alexandria noticed a few neat things about triangles around 300 B.C. that we can use today to understand how this shape plays in the birth chart.

One of those things is that the sum of any triangle’s three exterior angles is 360 degrees. In other words, if you measure all three angles from the outside, not from the inside, then add them up, you’ll get 360.

What else is 360 degrees around? A circle.

This discussion could go places on its own but at this point it might be more interesting to bring the square in for comparison’s sake. That’s because, in the square, it’s the four internal angles that add up to 360 degrees.

So the triangle suggests that, to move back toward the spiritual wholeness of the circle (the original 360 degrees), the person needs to move – to get outside the structure, break out, be original and daring and different. Individuation is the dynamic of the triangle.

On the other hand, the square suggests safety in the status quo, in remaining inside the structure, hugged by the familiar confines, each corner and each side of which is marked by sameness. The familiar — the family — by extension, the pre-set structures, habits and customs of the environment — is the habitat of the square.

The perfect square is the most stable (and stubborn!) of astrological shapes, whereas the triangle is dynamic with direction in a way that the unboundaried and infinite line is not. There are also many variations on the square — the rectangle, obviously, but also many quadrangles with internal angles that deviate from 90 degrees. But the fact remains that the sum of the internal angles always equals 360. The quadrangle, whether square, rectangle or anything else, no matter how outwardly-focused the action — is always focused on the inward stability suggested by this fact.

The dominance of linear, triangular or quadrangular structures in your chart (as well as their direction, coloring and other nuances pertaining to your chart in particular) will provide insight about your core motivations in life. Take a look and see what’s there…

More musings on sacred geometry here, here and here.

When we start to draw lines across the circle of our selves, we start fragmenting the personality into pieces that compete for energy, attention and territory.

Bringing those fragments back together into a coherent and self-referential (and self-reverential) whole is the driving focus of depth astrology and depth psychotherapy.

There is nothing inherently wrong with lines, whether they’re independent of triangles or quadrangles, or part of these larger shapes. It’s just that, in the absence of conscious awareness, they tend to Balkanize the Self until it’s hard to find our center, our wholeness again. That center is the place from which we act as boldly and wholly ourselves, not as a pawn of people who seem more powerful or as a needy or frightened being. The center is our true power because it is at once the root of our individuality and our compassion. It is there that power is not based on fear but on exuberant selfhood.

Knowing where your lines are — what parts of you compete for attention, or hide away in fear, or puff themselves up, or writhe like a cobra out of control — is a first step toward the center, toward feeling comfortable in your skin, toward self-assurance and the ability to breathe deeply because you can locate and listen to your Self, instead of to your fragments, in any given moment.

(More on sacred geometry here and here)

The simplest way to carve a circle into parts is by drawing a line between two points on the circle’s circumference.

(We do this in an effort to get a foothold within the angle-less realm of the circle — the wholeness of the self — which is the basic shape of the horoscope: More on that in Part I: The Circle.)

Mathematically, a line is three things.

First, it is infinite. Infinitely thin and infinitely long, it contains an infinite number of points. Infinite: without end. Mind-boggling.

Second, a line is precise. If two lines aren’t parallel, they meet at one, and only one, point. If they are parallel, they are exactly the same distance from each other down their entire infinite length. If they don’t meet one or the other of these conditions, they’re not lines.

Third, a line is efficient. It’s the shortest way between two points. Enough said.

So what does this mean to the horoscope?

When you have lines that aren’t part of a larger structure — a triangle or a quadrangle — you have an infinite, precise and efficient kind of energy. You can easily look at your own chart and see if you have any lines that aren’t part of a shape. If you do, you have some linear energy and you need to know about it.

There are some great things about linear energy: It’s sharp and quick, it is open to infinite possibilities and able to encompass much. On these lines, you quickly ascertain information, process it, integrate it and go out looking for more. You are open to what comes in, able to leap to the next step — nimble, flexible.

But people may also see you as flighty: She just keeps talking/thinking/gathering. She is infinite. She needs to slow down, to let other people catch up before she moves onto the next thing. You may also feel overloaded sometimes, or unable to sustain your interest or focus your energy long enough to complete a task. Like that line containing an infinite number of points and extending out into infinity, you must keep moving.

And that can be exciting, but it can also be exhausting.

This would be the purest form of linear energy, and few people’s charts are entirely made up of lines that aren’t part of a triangle or quadrangle (although it definitely happens). So it may be that you’re linear in these ways in one or two areas of life, but more dominated by triangular or quadrangular energy in other areas.

Linear energy is not, after all, much removed from the circle. It is one line but instead of meeting end to end, it opens up and extends out ad infinitum. It lacks the contained self-reference of the circle that allows for integration. But it does produce some exciting thought waves that, if you can draw them back into the circle, can serve you well.

More on triangles and quadrangles soon…

Pioneering astrological thinkers Bruno and Louisa Huber identified the golden mean, a geometric ratio found commonly in nature, as a cornerstone of horoscope interpretation. Though I have been a mathaphobe since about 7th grade, I am fascinated by the role of geometry in astrological understanding. Forget the faraway flapping of butterfly wings: That non-material ideas – numbers, ratios, shapes and lines — impact our understanding of self, other and world is the ultimate mind-trip.

So while I’m not yet ready to swim in the slipperiness of abstract numbers, I can talk about their more concrete relations with some relative confidence.

Part I: The circle (and its 3-D form, the sphere) is a common symbol of wholeness seen in group mythologies and individual dreams the world over. As the basic canvas on which the birth chart is drawn, the circle can be seen as a reflection of the whole person. Every breath, bone and drop of blood; every thought that flutters through your head; every heartbeat, puff of anger and surge of love; every utterance, every silence, everything you possess and relinquish and reclaim; every insecurity, every sure step, every memory — visceral or distant or utterly lost — falls within the scope of the circle that is you. So do all the ripples, histories and potentialities of every one of these things, and more.

If you have trouble imagining the vast scope of your own wholeness, you’re not alone. It’s no coincidence that perfect circles, while pleasing to the eye, are hard to navigate: If you tried to climb a circle, either inside or out, where would you fall? No corners, bumps or angles serve as footholds. Urban myths report people living in spherical structures tend to go mad quickly: What do you grasp onto? Where do you focus? How do you arrange your thoughts, your furniture? Is there any human experience more awesome and more fearsome alike than being alone in the great circle of ocean or desert or sky, the horizon unbroken in every direction? (If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend Life of Pi to get a sense of this experience.) In the great, unfathomable sphere of the universe, gravity falls away from our small, fathomable bodies. Tension and traction evaporate — can you imagine? — and we remain solely with our Selves to comprehend.

Perhaps this is at the core of why astrology has been reviled by the dominant culture for centuries — and why some astrologers tend to play at the edges with keywords and predictions instead of going for the chart’s jugular.

For the horoscope’s very structure implies that, in the end, God/the eternal/the divine/the universe — the Circle — is within each of us — is each of us.

That implies immense potential power in the individual — power that is awesome and fearsome alike — power that might be best symbolized in the quintessential mark of the universe, its birth moment: the Big Bang. The universe, like each of us, beginning with the moment of birth, is ever-expanding — forever trying to encompass its own greatness, grow into its astounding potential, push ever-outward the curve of its own sphere — whether it wants to, whether we want to, or not. The difference is, unlike most of us humble humans, the universe seems utterly unafraid of its own power.

So in an effort to grasp our own power, perhaps, we overlay our sphere with Prime Meridians and Tropics of Cancer, with the borders of nations and the scars of tract housing, etching our own unconscious striving onto the sphere of the natural world. We lay down lines, triangles and squares on the birth chart to help us make sense of the circle inside, to give us traction, footholds, in the otherwise vast and slippery expanse of ourselves.

More on that geometry in Part II.