On the surface, this is strange, since I just had an article come out in The Mountain Astrologer, finally completed my Diploma in Astrological Psychology with API (UK), and seen more change in the last [...]]]> I haven’t looked at a horoscope chart since last summer, much less tried to put anything astrological into words since then.

On the surface, this is strange, since I just had an article come out in The Mountain Astrologer, finally completed my Diploma in Astrological Psychology with API (UK), and seen more change in the last 12 months of my life than in the previous 10 years combined.

You’d think I’d be running to clients waving my new credentials like a flag in the wind, running to my blog to capitalize on a bit of publicity, running  to my chart to understand it all: the deaths, the layoff, the diagnosis, the abuse I suspected at the hands of my child’s caregiver, the two new businesses, the job offer, the packing, the move back to my hometown, the sale of our beloved home, the waiting, the chaos, the shedding, the limbo between being settled there and being settled here, the miracle cure for the mysterious pain I’d lived with for more than 16 years.

And the baby! The difficult pregnancy, the frightening labor — and then the mellowest, cheerfulest, healthiest, most startling new baby imaginable, in the midst of it all.

But one thing astrology teaches us — and especially Huber astrology — is that life flows in waves, like cycles, like the startled crash of ocean on rocks, followed by a swirling retreat, and then by the slow, smooth rocking of the water’s surface in preparation for the next big swell.

Only some of those times are conducive to reflection. Other times, the full-throttle living must come first.

There are many different astrological indicators for when such tempests might occur in a life. For me, it was predominantly the passage of my Age Point over the Low Point of my seventh house, followed immediately by Saturn’s transit across my Pluto-Moon-Uranus conjunction in Virgo and Libra in my second house. It was the grace of synchronicity, all lined up and waiting to sweep me off my feet, to steal my breath and my sight for a dark night.

I was only dimly aware of these imminent passages last January, only had a vague notion what the coming months might bring. I knew it would be a seminal year, knew certain parts of my life would be deeply shaken, even transformed. But as the drama stacked up, it began to obscure my view of the year’s astrology. I let go of all but the most essential survival requirements: tending to my children, tending to my health, tending to our money, our house, our safe passage through the storm.

From inside the tempest, it’s tough to see the landscape, the markers you normally grasp to orient yourself, to map your way back to dry ground.

We’re close to landing now, though. We were fully in the clouds and spray last fall; now, though still in flight, we’ve begun to let go of What Was. We’re starting to emerge from the mist, come closer to solid ground, squint the shoreline into view, see a cloudy outline of What’s To Come. And the astrology is waiting there, too.

Image

“Tom and myself rode down this hill in a ropey old 1950′s Leyland bus, typical of the Maltese bus fleet, but driven by the stunt driver for the bus scenes in ‘Speed’ where the bomb would go off if they slowed to less than [...]]]> The photographer’s description of this image is as striking as the picture itself:

“Tom and myself rode down this hill in a ropey old 1950′s Leyland bus, typical of the Maltese bus fleet, but driven by the stunt driver for the bus scenes in ‘Speed’ where the bomb would go off if they slowed to less than 40mph! We were on high seats opposite the exit door and had to grip on whilst centripetal force took us and the bus closer to the outside wall. Tyres squealed on the hot tarmac and we were saved by some old dear in black who didn’t seem to need to hang on and dinged the bell as calmly as you like for the driver to stop and let her off.” (Source)

Life feels like this, sometimes, for each of us. Yet some people are more prone than others to careening through the days, whipped back and forth by forces they feel they can’t control. They complain of other people’s actions and influences on their lives: “He made me feel bad,” “She won’t let me go,” “They really have me tied down.”

In traditional psychology, this innate sense of where control lies in one’s life is referred to as the locus of control. In astrology — namely in Huber astrology — we can determine where a chart native’s locus of control lies in different areas of life by examining the dynamic calculations: a series of negative and positive numbers whose values reflect the strength of various mode and element combinations within the chart, based on planet, sign and house placements.

For example, someone with dynamic calculations of +33 mutable and +14 earth will end up with a “build-up” of +47 in Virgo energy (Virgo being the mutable earth sign). This means, in a nutshell, that the person tends to assume that Virgo-type control over life exists externally, out in the world, not within her own domain. So though she may have several planets in Virgo, she may feel their obligation, responsibility and critical analysis being imposed on her from others rather than from within herself.

Similarly, someone with dynamic calculations of -18 fixed and +10 water will end up with a “cut-down” of -8 in Scorpio (fixed water) energy. The person’s sense of emotional depth, intensity and control will lie more within himself than without; he is more likely to acknowledge that his strong feelings are generated internally rather than to blame someone else, or some external circumstance, for them.

This basic knowledge of dynamic calculations, alongside the psychological concept of locus of control, can be enormously helpful for clients who feel they are careening down a mountainside in a runaway bus with a crazy driver and a bomb on board. The astrologer may be the wise woman in black, calmly ringing the bell, telling the client it’s okay to get off, to see what it’s like to descend calmly and quietly on his own two feet.

Image: Harry Willis

It’s called the Sequence of Reflex Behavior and [...]]]> The Hubers have done it again. Through their meticulous and rigorous research, they have discovered a new — and extraordinarily useful — way of looking at the horoscope that could shed light on individual behavioral norms, help couples understand each other better and help teams work together more effectively.

It’s called the Sequence of Reflex Behavior and it’s detailed in their book Transformation: Astrology as a Spiritual Path (first published in German in 1985; first published in English in 1990 under the title Astrology and the Spiritual Path).

The Sequence of Reflex Behavior (SRB) blends the Hubers’ concept of dynamic quadrants with their division of each house into cardinal, fixed and mutable zones to create a linear, left-to-right table that shows the order of behavior by which the chart native typically acts. So though a person may have strong earth energy, for example, if Uranus or Mercury is in the “leading” position in the SRB, he or she is likely more impulsive or spontaneous than earth signs are usually credited with.

In practical terms, if a person takes up a new issue or sequence of events then he begins with the planet which is furthest to the left… Thereupon follows in order the planet which is next to the right … He proceeds in this manner along the whole row until he comes to the end with the planet at the extreme right … The sequence of behavior ends here. In this manner of consideration, it is unimportant that the planets in sequence from left to right may have their origin in different quadrants. (Huber & Huber, p. 19)

What’s more, in constructing the SRB, the Hubers have associated specific mental/psychological tasks with each cross and house zone. For example, if Venus is in the cardinal zone of the 9th house, the chart native employs that planet’s energy for the idea-formation phase of a task. If it is in the mutable zone of the 1st house, however, it is employed more for stabilization purposes. And so on. Here is an example of the SRB, based on my own chart (please note it is just roughly drawn — the Huber book has much more detail and information):

So you can see that, with Uranus leading off, I tend to go into tasks and choices with much more spontaneity than, say, my husband who has Saturn in the first position. Uranian energy motivates me to begin a project. Then I quickly move into visioning and impulse action with Jupiter and Mars, and then to a sort of Venusian love affair with my project in which I tend to turn my ideas and plans over in my mind, enjoying their promise.

Next — Saturn and Mercury — is where self-doubt and criticism set in, spurring detailed planning that leads to the Sun’s creative urge. Neptune, next, may bring another crisis of self-doubt, confusion, or sacrifice; this tends to be a difficult stage for me and I often abandon projects at this point. If I can stick with it, however, it tends to reward with emotional transformation, power and self-determination: the Pluto-Moon conjunction at the end. What is especially fascinating to me is that the planet in the final position — in my case the Moon — signals the overall motivation, the drive that pulls the person through the entire process. This is very much the case for me: emotional contact with others, a la the Moon, is a driving force in my life and life choices.

This is obviously just a very quick sketch of a complex and powerful tool. I highly recommend picking up the book if you want to delve deeper into this new way of looking at the horoscope chart.

In the natal chart, as many astrologers have pointed out, the Moon’s North Node signals a karmic calling in this life: what the native is here to accomplish. It’s normally [...]]]> Most books on karma and reincarnation in western astrology look to the natal chart for clues about what baggage we lugged into our present journey on earth.

In the natal chart, as many astrologers have pointed out, the Moon’s North Node signals a karmic calling in this life: what the native is here to accomplish. It’s normally not an easy task (why would we be sent here to live out an easy life?). But while the North Node is the lodestar, it is not the whole journey. For that, astrological psychology pioneers Bruno and Louise Huber have developed a different tool: an entirely new chart covering the whole sweeping scope of past lives. It’s called the Moon Node chart.

(For the astrologers in the audience, the chart is created by exchanging the sign placements of the North Node and the Ascendant, making every house 30 degrees and reversing the direction of the zodiac wheel. See the examples of Carl Jung’s nodal and natal charts below.)

In keeping with the Hubers’ rigorous psycho-spiritual development model, the Moon Node chart does not exist for the ego’s purpose of finding out whether we were Cleopatra or Genghis Khan in a previous life. Instead, its purpose is to understand the present through the lens of the past in order to transform current problems — so we can better fulfill our karmic destiny in this lifetime. The Moon Node chart helps with that process by providing not which job titles we held in former lives but, more importantly, information about the kinds of activities, habits and relationship dynamics we have engaged in over the millennia. This information indicates the deep ruts we’ve dug ourselves into, from which we must now emerge in order to evolve.

The Moon Node chart integrates the idea of karma with the Jungian concept of psychic compensation, by which our psyche creates mirror images of our thoughts, feelings and habits in order to balance out our behavior. For example, a person who spent a former life manipulating and cheating others (a behavior that could be identified in the Moon Node chart) may, in this lifetime, find himself repeatedly playing the patsy to other nefarious folk. Similarly, someone who was formerly a slave may now find herself faced with great power over the lives of others. This “compensatory karma,” as I like to call it, is meant to lift the native out of the instinctive recycling of old energies and toward the compass-point of the present moment, the call of the current life.

In my view, it almost doesn’t matter whether you believe in reincarnation or not. The Hubers cast the Moon Node chart through this lens, and it is a very useful lens, not least because it gives us strong archetypal images on which to hang our self-understanding and self-development. But even if you cannot grasp the idea of past lives, it is clear that each of us comes into the world with a certain temperament, with propensities toward particular behaviors and with compulsions to habits or feelings whose roots we just don’t understand; and even contemporary psychotherapy cannot explain them all.

The Hubers, in their book Moon-Node Astrology, also provide a list of “archetypal stimulus words” — words like nomad, artist, merchant, thief, snob, matrimony, dictator, celebrity, inquisition, cardinal’s hat, abbess, isolation and many, many more — that can help chart natives intuitively tap into their past life dynamics with the aid of their Moon Node chart. Connecting with the individually relevant images may be the beginning of a journey back through time that allows each of us to come to terms with the past — however we perceive that term — so we may move forward into the present moment to fulfill our purpose in the now.

Image: qthomasbower

I suppose the question is becoming more and more urgent as environmental degradation seeps more deeply and more intractably into our lives — and as people of certain stripes [...]]]> This question has come up, in various forms, during several horoscope readings lately: What is my relationship to the environment? – meaning the natural environment, nature, wildness, wilderness.

I suppose the question is becoming more and more urgent as environmental degradation seeps more deeply and more intractably into our lives — and as people of certain stripes reach ever more desperately for connection to the earth, or to our inner wilds. But it’s a difficult question, not only because there’s no clear archetype of nature herself in the horoscope but because what the horoscope does tell us about nature seems, in my view, to jive with a more imperialist view of humanity’s relationship with the trees and the mountains and the rivers.

What I mean is that my instinctive response to the question is to look at astrological implications of what the chart native can “get” from the natural world. For example, the other day, an avid dog lover with Jupiter in Taurus in the 5th house put the question to me in her own way, and my gut reaction was, “You could probably make a good amount of money breeding dogs.” Besides being a wholly inadequate response, the specific example implies a view that nature is there for our benefit — and that is not my client’s perspective (or mine) at all.

So the question becomes not only how to let go of my own unexpected imperialist view but also, then, to answer a question with a question: What is your intention, or desire, or need with nature? What are you thinking, feeling, or longing for, that seems as yet out of reach? The UK’s Atmosphere, Climate & Environment Information Programme has a wonderful summary of differing perspectives on nature here, describing four basic human attitudes toward the wild:

• Stewardship, which holds that humans are part of and must care for the environment.
• Imperialism, which holds that humans and nature are separate, and that humans have an inherent right to control nature.
• Romanticism, which holds that nature is sacred, akin to God, and must be left alone to its wildness.
• Utilitarianism or hedonism, which holds that the purpose of nature is to provide pleasure, comfort and usefulness to humans.

Each of these perspectives will have astrological corollaries through which we can understand more deeply the client’s impulse around nature. However, like any relationship, we cannot look to just one element of the chart to say, “Oh! You’re a hedonist! You want food from that river.” For example, a steward will be resource-conscious while also valuing mutuality. Perhaps she has a strong Venus, a horizontal aspect structure and several planets along the 2/8 axis. An imperialist may have more dominant-submissive features, such as a strong vertical orientation, an intense Pluto and several oppositions. A romantic might be watery and 12th house-oriented, whereas a hedonist may be earthier with a dominant Jupiter.

Then again, maybe not. Because again, like any relationship, the answer will never be as straightforward as a single archetype or element (which, after all, is not a simple thing in and of itself anyway). While we might have overriding tendencies in any relationship — to seek attention, to create stability, to exchange ideas, to control — none of us is exclusively a monolithic impulse. We want all of these things, from each other and from nature, in differing proportions in different relationships at different times in our lives.

And so asking an astrologer, “What is my relationship to the environment?” is a bit like asking her, “What is my relationship with people?” or “with money?” or “with work?” Relationships comprise the whole of the chart; they are a primary expression of Psyche; they engage every intricacy of our brains, our bodies, our souls, so that it is a question worthy of a whole session, or more, to inquire about the wilderness.

And that’s not even considering the wilderness within.

Picture of the Week: Scott Thiessen

Psychology and sociology have conspired in recent decades to promote the belief that temperament and personality are all nurture, no nature. But as most parents will tell you (and [...]]]> This picture is appropriate in that I’m now reading The Wonder of Boys by Michael Gurian in an effort to better understand the burgeoning boy in my life.

Psychology and sociology have conspired in recent decades to promote the belief that temperament and personality are all nurture, no nature. But as most parents will tell you (and as researchers have finally begun to admit), kids come out with their own distinct natures — a portion of which are clearly gender-specific.

Though he is careful to allow for each person’s individuality, Gurian’s book describes the ways testosterone, fetal brain development and other biochemical processes drive the traits we’ve come to identify as “typically” male: physicality, competitiveness, task-orientation, skill-building, independence-seeking and so forth. As someone who has historically experienced competition as anxiety- and shame-producing, this sentence particularly struck me: “Competition, for boys, is a form of nurturing behavior.” (p. 29)

I read the sentence to my husband who, as my mind was still reeling, casually remarked that he understood it instinctively. I had to start reshuffling my own neurons, start accepting the idea that the teasing element to my husband’s and son’s relationship might be, in fact, not a form of put-down or rivalry but, instead, a display of deep affection. How strange, I thought.

Not surprisingly, these “typically male” characteristics are part and parcel of the Mars archetype. Mars is the rawest expression of masculinity in the horoscope chart; it gets refined and strengthened as it goes “up the ladder” to solar consciousness and, then, transformative Plutonian will (this structure is per the Huber schema). But at the instinctive level, we can truly feel the testosterone pumping through, the competitiveness and the physicality and the drive to build skills, the urge to perform and succeed.

In my son’s chart, Mars is in Taurus in the 9th house. He learns well through large-muscle movement, through experiences that engage his mind in whole-body knowing. At three, he’s interested in reading and writing, but sitting in a chair and going over symbols and sounds won’t do for him the way it did for me. He is much better with interactivity, with word games that challenge him to build new skills, with learning new words and trying them out in a sentence, with connecting pictures with letters through books or television shows. (He is currently obsessed with PBS’s Word World, which makes letters into pictures of the things they represent.)

He also needs to move in a way I’ve never experienced: If he doesn’t ride his bike or scooter, kick a soccer ball, hit a baseball or run for several hours each day, he is restless and grumpy all night.

My Mars, on the other hand, is in Aquarius in the 6th house — a very different orientation. My body has always seemed, somewhat, like an appendage to my mind; give me an idea and I’ll chew on it and chew on it and chew on it until it’s spent. If there’s time later and I’m inspired, I might go for a stroll around the neighborhood. My Mars gets pumped by exploring and analyzing ideas, especially if I can organize them into a thought system. That’s why astrology works so well for me as a discipline. Whereas other tasks might bore me, I am continually absorbed by astrology, working to increase my knowledge and skills; it gives me energy rather than depleting it. I want to distinguish myself and be the best I can be in this field.

Sports? Meh, I prefer watching instead.

Take a look at the Mars in your chart. What sign and house is it in? Do you feel the energy pumping through you in the ways suggested by the sign and house? How so?

Photo: Lochnagarth

Nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small it takes time — we haven’t time — and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.

And Georgia O’Keefe should know about time. She lived for ninety-nine years, from 1887 until 1986.

I recently advised a client to spend an hour eating [...]]]>

Nobody sees a flower — really — it is so small it takes time — we haven’t time — and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.

And Georgia O’Keefe should know about time. She lived for ninety-nine years, from 1887 until 1986.

I recently advised a client to spend an hour eating an orange. This was not originally my idea; it came from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Peace is Every Step, a series of short but profound thoughts, such as “Tangerine Meditation” which reads, in part:

[The children] saw not only the tangerine, but also its mother, the tangerine tree. With some guidance, they began to visualize the blossoms in the sunshine and in the rain. Then they saw petals falling down and the tiny green fruit appear. The sunshine and the rain continued, and the tiny tangerine grew. … Each child was invited to peel the tangerine slowly, noticing the mist and the fragrance of the tangerine, and then bring it up to his or her mouth and have a mindful bite …

Each time you look at a tangerine, you can see deeply into it. You can see everything in the universe in one tangerine. (Source)

This, in turn, reminds me of the beautiful poem “The Shirt” by Robert Pinsky, wherein the poet sees, in his simple button-down shirt, the whole world and the whole, in its own way, of history: the farm laborers harvesting the cotton, the sweat shop workers cutting and piecing it together, the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, the development of Scottish tartans, more, and more.

Astrologically, Mercury can be seen as little bits of data like Pinsky’s “The back, the yoke, the yardage. Lapped seams / The nearly invisible stitches along the collar.” It is the calories and grams of fat we eat, the telephone numbers we store in our heads, the time we’re scheduled to meet someone and the silent agreement with other drivers that we pass on the left and stop at red lights. None of life could go forward without these things, but they are not the essence or the energy of the life.

On the other hand, Jupiter is the entirety of the poem, the full-tongued experience of eating an orange, the whole breath-sucking vision of an O’Keefe. It is the sweeping view of the day, the sensory themes, the long arc of energy that embraces the whole.

And yet neither of these things is seeing a flower deeply, or taking an hour to eat an orange, or knowing your shirt so well that you feel its history. These, I would say — the interweaving, the interlocking, of many visible details into an integrated, structured whole — is Saturn. Saturn is physical, boundaried structure that binds together many small pieces into a coherent and useful whole. It is the legal code and all its individual laws, ordinances and rulings. It is the work plan and each step that must be taken. It is the mother’s security and each little thing she does — the schedule, the snacks, the snuggles — to create it.

Saturn is the way the cuticle, the xylem, the phloem, the stoma, the upper and lower epidermis, the cells, the veins arrange themselves in startling symmetry to become a single leaf. It is the way that leaf retools and restructures its resources and sends them back out into the world to sustain life.

Poor Saturn. It has been denigrated as malefic and destructive. It turns the world, sometimes, in ways that make us want to cover our ears and sing, “La la la la la la la…” But Saturn is about preserving what it important. And what is important may not always be to our liking.

Photo: didbygraham