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 I was fortunate enough this weekend to soak up a talk on memory, voice and writing by the inspiring and insightful Dennis Patrick Slattery, who I once heard speak, seemingly off the cuff, on Dante’s Inferno for about seven hours straight. (Okay, there was a lunch break in the middle of that one. But still. Seven hours.)
This weekend, Slattery finally defined for me a word I’d rather helplessly watched tossed around during my Master’s studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute: mythopoesis. I believe I was probably in the bathroom or getting a Diet Coke from the vending machine outside when the term was defined, and I never really got around to finding out more about it, though it intrigued me a lot. So it always seemed to me to be a very academic, but also a kind of airy-faery, word. I got the feeling of it — or so I thought — but could never, as they say, use it in a sentence.
I’m still not sure, even after Slattery’s entrancing definition this past Saturday night, that I could use it in a sentence. But it watered more interesting seeds in my mind, anyway, which is almost certainly more important. Myth, he said, comes from the Greek word muthos, which means both story and mouth. Poesis is the act of giving something shape or form. So mythopoesis can be understood as a fancy word for storytelling.
Except there’s something more there. It’s not just fancy-talk. Mythopoesis, I think, is more than storytelling. Maybe storytelling is the first leg of mythopoesis which, it seems to me, lies somewhere on the boundary between speaking and writing. If muthos is mouth and story, which imply verbal speech, but poesis is shape and form, which imply a tangible kind of something — paper and letters, a hand and a pen — then perhaps mythopoesis is the kind of deep truth that can only come of a story that is told and retold until it becomes so etched in memory that it has form in and of itself. The story becomes a living image — voice becomes form — and is released into the world for others to witness, experience, respond.
Astrologically, when we think of words, we think Mercury. When we think of form, we think Saturn. But, too, there is a path to travel — not just the archetypal points in space — the planets — that symbolize words and form, but also the landscape around them, the roadways in our bodies, minds and memories that connect words with form. So, as an exercise in self-discovery, start by seeing how your own instinct for mythopoesis is reflected in your Mercury and Saturn: In which houses and signs do they sit? Are one or both on a cusp? Are they connected somehow — even if indirectly? Are they conjunct any other planets that might impact their character?
Then go a little further. Forget Mercury and Saturn specifically, and try to understand how else your voice takes form in the world. So look: Which planets sit on cusps, especially the ascendant or the midheaven? Are there pathways that connect the lower half or the left half of the chart — those generally more private spheres — with the upper half or the right half, where your public awaits? How do your words travel? What do people hear?
Even deeper, now: Words may be just the end-product of voice because the latter is constantly being generated deep within the psyche. Words are the common symbols that try to describe the deeper ongoing process inside. So look more: Where do you stew? Which planets sit more in the middle third of a house? In fixed houses? Along particularly difficult or particularly complacent aspects? Where does your focus dip down inside of you, and how does it return to the surface? With what does it return?
And then: How do those more internal planets connect with more external ones — the ones on the outer thirds of each house, or the ones on cusps, or the ones to the right or above the horizon? How do you bring the gift of your internal stew out of your throat with your voice, or out of your fingers with a pen? When it emerges — when you poesis your muthos, where does it land? Who hears you? What form does it take?
What response comes back?
 The Huber way of analyzing family dynamics through the birth chart dovetails beautifully with attachment theory — and adds one critical dimension that mainstream psychology has so far only been able to lightly sketch out.
By my own definition, attachment is the ability of the child to develop a sense of security and self (or not) through relationship to the parents (or parental figures). Without a strong, secure, positive relationship, the child’s security and sense of self founder. Insecurity and low self-esteem result. Relationships throughout life are deeply and directly impacted by the quality of attachment in the child’s early years.
There are three basic “attachment types” that children (and the adults they become) exhibit:
- Secure attachment results from parents’ consistent and empathic attunement with the child. These children — and the adults they become — are likely to be curious, engaged and generally not fearful of relationships. They are playful, empathic, resilient and resourceful.
- Avoidant attachment stems from lack of parental attunement and from perhaps inappropriate demands for the child’s independence. These children can grow into adults whose defenses include disengagement or lack of commitment; some may display anger, antipathy or compulsive self-reliance.
- Ambivalent attachment is rooted in the parents’ inconsistent response to the child — sometimes warm, sometimes cold. These personalities can be reactive, volatile or anxious as well as co-dependent or not fully self-reliant.
Psychologists can determine developing attachment styles by watching children’s response to separation from the parent(s). Interventions can be taught that help the parent better and more consistently attune to their child’s emotional and physical needs — and so possibly change the course of the child’s lifelong relationship style, self-esteem and sense of security in the world. This is an amazing development!
But Huber astrology can contribute to intervention through prevention with a thoughtful and sensitive reading of the child’s chart. My caveat is that it’s not an exact or foolproof match for the three attachment types noted above — consciousness, environment and other astrological factors certainly impact attachment styles and how relationships develop. However, my instinct is that the Huber reading of family dynamics in the birth chart can help us detect the child’s inherent tendencies in the area of attachment. For example:
- Secure attachment may have the best chance when there is an indirect connection between Moon (child) and Sun (father) and/or Saturn (mother). An indirect aspect ensures a connection that allows approach and attunement — but one that has enough slack to allow the child to grow into himself over time. This jives with the notion that secure attachment is rooted in the “secure base” — a sense of safety provided by the parent, and eventually internalized by the child, that allows the youngster to venture ever-further out into the world: a growing practice of healthy separation, identity formation and individuation.
- Avoidant attachment may loom when there are no connections between Moon and the other two ego planets. This is because the parents expect (even unconsciously) the child to be independent and self-reliant right from the get-go. The child has the early impression that he or she is alone in the world, that the safety net must be completely created and maintained by himself. (However, I have seen children with no such connections whose parents are warm, connected and attuned.)
- Ambivalent attachment may occur when Moon makes a direct aspect to Sun or Saturn. The obvious danger here, particularly with Sun-Moon or Saturn-Moon conjunctions, is enmeshment — that is, the tendency to get so wrapped up in each other’s needs, wants and identity that it’s hard to separate the parent from the child. But enmeshment does not mean attunement (sometimes precisely the opposite!), so while the child may sometimes feel attuned to, at other times his or her needs may be so subsumed by the parents’ that the child can feel lost and confused. The closeness feels nice, but there’s something amiss in it.
It’s important to note that a child can display one attachment style with one parent but something entirely different with the other — further validating the Huber model that considers father and mother separately. And yet, of course, there are a lot of other factors to consider when attachment issues are afoot, including placement of the ego planets within the chart, strength and sign of each planet, interceptions and so forth. Still, simply observing the aspect relationships of the ego planets may help us conduct intervention so early that it could legitimately be called prevention. Consciousness can go a long way in mitigating what could otherwise become an insecure attachment.
As I believe early attachment experiences are the root of emotional stability, there may be no more important consideration when reading a chart, whether that chart is for a newborn or a wizened elder — because no matter how old, having our particular attachment style understood, interpreted and validated can only be healing.
Has anyone out there observed the intersection of astrology and attachment types — either formally or anecdotally? If so, I’d love to know!
 In California, the hours you intern in preparation for licensure as a Marriage and Family Therapist must directly relate to the way people conduct their relationships: It ain’t called “Marriage and Family Therapist” for nothin’. The state is markedly interested in perpetuating the stability of marriages and families. They don’t much care about your archetypes, the Divine within, the transcendent function, blah blah blah.
That said, pretty much any therapy you do — even therapy focused on the slipperier aspects of the Self — can be understood as directly relating to the way the client conducts relationships. After all, Who You Are is what you bring to relationships — marriage, family and all the rest of ‘em.
Still, being part of a Marriage and Family myself, and being, for once, in agreement with the state — there really is nothing more important to me than the strength of my little trio in the L.A. Foothills — I am very taken by the Hubers’ understanding of the nuclear family within the birth chart.
Because in a few quick glances at a child’s chart, you can actually get a glimpse of how you, the parent, are being experienced by your child. You can start to make sense of the overwhelm of parenting advice out there — from the Internet to your mother-in-law and everyone in between. You can start to trust your own intuition about how you parent — and catch yourself when you start to slide sideways. You can not only separate the wheat from the chaff  but also the wheat that’s good for you from the wheat that might just give your family bloat.
For example, in the chart at the right, which was randomly generated from a date, time and place I just picked out of nowhere, the child (Moon) is going to naturally feel more kinship with the father (Sun) than with the mother (Saturn) — by simple virtue of the fact that Moon and Sun have a direct aspect relationship, whereas Saturn is not connected to either Sun or Moon. This indicates not a “bad mother” (too much of those accusations going on in traditional psychotherapy!) but a mother who the child may perceive as distant or disconnected. The child’s perception, whether “accurate” or not (and, really, who’s to say?) is what informs his emotional development. Understanding not how you parent, but how your parenting is perceived by the person to whom it’s directed, is critically important.
What’s so great about this way of reading the chart is that we can know it before it’s too late — before attachment disorders develop, before parent and child grow up stewing in misunderstanding and missed opportunity, before anger and accusations overtake interactions, before the most extreme and incomprehensible nightmare of estrangement. Because we can know the likely skews in perception and even in actual behavior, we can head them off at the pass. The mother in the above randomly-generated chart could compensate for the perceived disconnect by making a conscious effort to connect — by setting aside time and devoted energy just for her child every day. Another mother might not have to be so deliberate about doing so because her child will naturally have the expectation, propensity and experience of connectedness. In fact, in the chart above, the child would probably have such an experience of the father.
Consciousness can prevent and cure a lot of things. The state and I, for once, agree: Marriage and Family Problems are among the most important targets for prevention and cure. Now if only they’d reimburse astrologers with public funds…
 Astrologer Extraordinaire Joyce Hopewell challenged her blog-reading astrologers to come up with eight random things about themselves through the lens of a single aspect structure in their birth chart. So, because I can’t get it out of my head, I choose my irritation triangle, that red-green-green dog biting my chart in two along the MC-IC line.
1. The structure itself – the irritation triangle — is an intensely restless figure that, strung up across the 3rd-9th house axis, has me thinking constantly. I’m a super-mental person who is always gathering and processing data (Mercury), putting it into a useful, organized structure or form (Saturn) that’s infused (I hope) with wild insight (Uranus). In fact, this blog was created as a place for me to put my passing thoughts (Mercury) on the depths of astrological ideas (Uranus) into lasting form (Saturn).
2. Saturn in Taurus, however, can also make me come off as quite serious and deliberate (or, ahem, slow), though I do have a sense of humor that emerges elsewhere — no, really, I do! Anyway, I was very relieved to read The Introvert Advantage, which pointed out that, in introverts, the pathway that thoughts travel to reach comprehension is actually physically longer than it is in extraverts. In the 9th house (which is about long-distance travel and deep thinking), this makes perfect sense to me. And it makes me happy.
3. Speaking of deep thinking, yes, the 9th house Saturn definitely scores big on that one. But Sun-Mercury in Scorpio at the IC is no slouch, either. I have that pair constantly plumbing the depths for information that I can chew on, turn over, revel in, have fun with and ultimately put to good use. My favorite dispatch for Sun-Mercury is the collective unconscious, the realm of the archetypes — living, breathing, ancient models for human behavior and interactions. So favorite, in fact, that I went and got a Master’s degree in the stuff from Pacifica Graduate Institute.
4. Mercury also loves collecting stories – and at the bottom of the birth chart, the more collective and unconscious, the better. So I’ve launched a venture which should go public this fall that will help people tell stories about transformative events in their family lives. Mercury-Sun in Scorpio straddling the IC! More to come…
5. And speaking of stories, my dad is a master storyteller (Sun-Mercury). He didn’t fight in a war, he never spied on the Soviets (remember that whole thing?!), he hasn’t (yet) achieved fame as a rock star (except in my childhood eyes). But grab a glass of wine (uh — that’s my Venus-Jupiter conjunction in Libra talking) and get comfortable (again with the Venus-Jupiter!), because once you get him going, his storytelling could keep you captivated for hours.
6 . But don’t let me sit too long, because that red line straight up the chart is my spine — and it hurts. It connects my playful, instinctive self (Sun conjunct Mercury) with my demanding Saturn overlord. For years, a tug-of-war between these two has wreaked psychosomatic havoc on my back. The only thing that seems to help is emptying my mind through yoga and meditation. Kundalini yoga is my passion; the creative lifeforce of Kundalini energy is often symbolized by a snake (one symbol of Scorpio) curled at the base of the spine (IC), waiting to be awakened. I have a curled snake tattooed on my sacrum.
7. It’s best for my thoughts that I don’t sit long, though, whether in meditation or vegetation. My thoughts seem to converge, cohere and clarify best when I’m walking … and walking … and walking. I’ve always loved hiking, and the image of Mercury in the shadow of the 4th house — climbing to the summit of the mountain of the depths — really resonates with me. Literal vigorous walking brings me closer to that summit. When I don’t walk regularly, my thoughts go flabby. Yuck.
8. Uranus. Surprise! Orange you glad I didn’t say Saturn again? With semisextile and quincunx antennae, and a lunar conjunction to boot, this little green man is the feeler-into-er of the irritation trio. While Mercury’s spewing out data and Saturn’s trying to categorize it, organize it and make something of it, Uranus — if it can get a word in edgewise — helps me focus on the intuitive center of all that info. I used to try and logic everything out. I made some serious missteps that way that I’d rather not discuss, thanks anyway. Now, if I can hear through the babble of the thick red line, my gut usually tells me everything I need to know.
9. Bonus #9. It took me forever to get this post completed and up because of the perfectionism, anxiety and change-my-mind-iness of that irritating triangle!
What are some random things you’ve learned about yourself through astrology? My irritation triangle wants to know!
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What People Say “Truly gifted astrologers are a rarity. Kathy Crabb is one such person. She is a brilliant, original thinker, an intuitive and empathic counselor and a superb workshop facilitator.”
Pam Tyler, Dip. API (1981), Dip. FAS (1979),
AFA Teacher Cert. (1978); Astrologer since 1977;
Co-founder of Astrological Psychology Institute (UK);
Author of Mercury: Anatomy of a Planet
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I was fortunate enough this weekend to soak up a talk on memory, voice and writing by the inspiring and insightful Dennis Patrick Slattery, who I once heard speak, seemingly off the cuff, on Dante’s Inferno for about seven hours straight. (Okay, there was a lunch break in the middle of that one. But still. Seven hours.)
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