“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

If you dump a cup of bleach into a tide pool or command a sudden storm to a shaky cliffside, nothing in those environments is the same afterwards. If fragile flora are so lucky as to survive, if [...]]]> I’ve been turning this idea over in my mind like a rock in the tide for some time now.

If you dump a cup of bleach into a tide pool or command a sudden storm to a shaky cliffside, nothing in those environments is the same afterwards. If fragile flora are so lucky as to survive, if animals are not sickened or injured or displaced, they then adapt to their new surroundings in order to survive.

So, too, in astrology: Everything is related, even unaspected planets or completely separate aspect structures or the charts of two people who don’t even know each other. The Wikipedia definition of an ecosystem goes like this:

An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic factors) in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment. An ecosystem is a completely independent unit of interdependent organisms which share the same habitat. (Source)

The Wikipedia article goes on to say:

Eugene Odum, a founder of ecology, stated: “Any unit that includes all of the organisms in a given area interacting with the physical environment so that a flow of energy leads to clearly defined trophic structure, biotic diversity and material cycles (i.e., exchange of materials between living and nonliving parts) within the system is an ecosystem.” (Source)

It is easy to make the case for all planets interacting with each other and none being immune to the influence of another. For example, Deborah, a strongly Saturnine person who adheres strictly to rules, plans out her day and looks before she leaps is seized, one morning, by the spontaneous urge to quit her job, dye her hair purple and run away for a weekend — or for a year.

What has happened in her environment — what bleach has gotten into her water? (Likely something like transiting Uranus is aspecting her Saturn, perhaps with Mars thrown into the picture as well.) If she follows through on those urges, how will her life and personality change? How will the “trophic structure” — i.e., that heretofore stable, symbiotic system that feeds and sustains Deborah’s life — need to shift to accommodate the new, impetuous element that the environment of her personality has not experienced before?

On a subtler level, David has spent years in therapy working to replace his knee-jerk need for others’ reassurance (a weak Moon, perhaps) with a more self-assured, self-aware  independence (a strong Sun). How will this shift affect the other parts of his internal environment: Saturn’s need for security, Mars’s urge to explore and express, Venus’s desire to relate? How will the edges of that internal environment — that is, David’s relationships with other people — be affected? How will his shifting relationships impact his own internal ecosystem?

There is much more to say on this topic, for the idea of an ecosystem itself is complex. But for now, I leave you these questions to ponder: How does the flow of energy in my own chart create a “trophic structure” within me? In other words, how does my aspect structure feed each of my planets, creating a clearly defined personality system? Are any of my planets starving? Are any of them gorging? What shifts might bring more balance to my internal ecosystem? What unintended impacts might those shifts also bring?

Photo: joguldi

For the record, I don’t have a beard in waking life.

I awoke in the full mood of fall and went about the tasks of the morning [...]]]> Last night I dreamt I shaved off my beard — a stylized goatee that came to a perfect point at the bottom, the sides curving around my jaws like little arms.

For the record, I don’t have a beard in waking life.

I awoke in the full mood of fall and went about the tasks of the morning without thinking much about it. But when the boys were gone, NPR was turned off and the dishes had settled in their stacks, the dream came back quietly.

In essence, I think, it was about shedding what had grown: saying goodbye to the old, getting ready for the new. It was an appropriate, if funny, dream for the change of season.

Even though it’s not officially fall yet, the summer cycle is definitely closing: Ask anyone who has school-age children, or arthritis. Last week on our midwest visit, there was talk of sweaters, hayrides and apple presses. Even here in southern California, the air is a little crisper and the traffic much thicker than last week. And Starbucks has mercifully brought back its pumpkin spice latté.

This is the time of year when, in my quieter moments, I tend to remember the ancient myth of Persephone, who picked a flower and was whisked away into the underworld by Hades (Pluto) himself. Persephone’s mother, the earth goddess Demeter, mourned the loss of her child and withheld the harvest from the people until Zeus (Jupiter) brokered a deal: Persephone would stay in the underworld with Hades for one-third of each year and reunite with her mother during the remaining eight months. The separation, disappearance, change in cycles was necessary for the growth of both mother and daughter.

There are more complexities to the story, but its core truth lies in these simple details; and we see that truth reflected, also, in the horoscope chart. Bruno and Louise Huber identified a way to interpret the chart as a “life clock” — starting with birth at the ascendant and spending six years in each house. At a certain point in each house, people tend to turn inward. They feel their active energy thwarted or stilled. They are forced to take stock and turn the season of their life toward the next more active, more outwardly-effective cycle.

This internal period can often be felt as a crisis point — the point where, like Demeter, no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot get what you want. Waiting is necessary, and that can be frustrating. It can even feel like death — like being dragged into the underworld against your will, like being taken away from everything light and abundant and familiar.

But the Demeter story, and the Hubers’ work, and astrology in general remind us, each in their own ways, that life happens in cycles, and thus the underworld period is essential. Shortcuts and bypasses are decidedly not advised.

See: The flower germinates; it blossoms; it dies. The school year begins; it proceeds; it ends. Babies are born; the family coheres; the children grow up and move away. Before the third phase of each cycle, we must catch our breaths, because in truth that third phase is just the preparation for the next cycle: As it dies, the flower must seed the next crop. As the school year ends, the student must make ready for the next. As they grow up and move away, our children prepare to give birth themselves.

I know a lot of people who say they feel nostalgic every year as fall begins. Maybe some of the nostalgia is a longing for eternal summer, but there’s something deeper going on there, too, I think: a wistfulness for the cycle that was, perhaps; an uncomfortable acknowledgment that time always urges us forward; a wish for the familiar footprints we’ve already put down. We know that place behind us. Why can’t we just stay there, or jump forward to the next activity? Why must we power down a bit now?

And yet we know the fall, too. Its familiarity, it smells and its slower tempo are ancient and comforting. Its darker days cloister us indoors, where we are forced to face the internal. We survive the cold, and the dark, and the frightening because we must — and because our fiber is thicker and heartier than we give ourselves credit for in the bright sweat of summer.

Yet it’s often as surprising to remember our own strength, and our own tenacity, and our own depth, as it is to dream of a woman shaving off her pointed goatee to prepare for what’s next.

Go to Meditations for the End of Summer

Photo credits: Bearded lady, life cycles, autumn

She knew, I guess, that such a lesson was due me, my own Virgo Moon highly charged [...]]]> When our child was born — three years ago today — with Virgo Sun, Virgo Moon and Virgo rising, my astrology mentor raised her eyebrows, looked at me pointedly and said, “Now you’ll get a deep, deeeeeeep lesson in Virgo!”

She knew, I guess, that such a lesson was due me, my own Virgo Moon highly charged in the powerful embrace of Pluto and Uranus.

The Dragon, born at home on the cusp of sunrise, came out of my body with his eyes closed. No tears, no screaming, no wild “Where am I?” glances around the room. He passed his Apgar tests with flying colors but remained quiet and kept his eyes closed for hours, as if he were focusing hard on a task. His new surroundings, the sudden dryness of air, the finally unmuffled voices: None of these things seemed to distract him or even spark his interest.

We finally realized that he was, indeed, deeply immersed in a struggle to breathe.

How like this triple-Virgo, to focus first, and deeply, on the proper execution of the body before turning his attention to the more dramatic developments unfolding around him. As our midwife and her apprentice swirled around with life-saving equipment and decision-making; as my two dear friends brought food and talked me through what was happening; as my husband, Alan, and I tried to make sense of the sudden turn of events, the Dragon just kept his eyes closed and breathed, and breathed. Focused.

We saw his eyes once, briefly, in the ambulance, and then not again for another three days — once the worst of his infection had passed and he started weaning from the painkillers.

He came back home just shy of two weeks old.

At first, we were so immersed in parenting an infant, and sneaking sleep whenever we could, that we didn’t much notice the astrological psychology of our baby: It just wasn’t, obviously, the priority. I barely even looked at his chart for the first year of his life.

Then, when he was 14 months old, I wrote this entry on our family blog:

When I put [the Dragon] in the bath last night, he noticed a shampoo bottle in a place it doesn’t normally sit. He pointed at it and yelled, “Aaa!” then looked at me and pointed to the shelf where it usually goes.

“Yes,” I said, smiling, “you’re right. It usually goes up there.” I continued to wash his hair and squirt the rubber duckie at him.

He dodged the rubber duckie, looking a little cross. “Aaa!” he said again, pointing to the shampoo bottle and then to the shelf where it usually belongs.

“Yes,” I agreed. “You’re so smart! It usually does go up there.” I started rinsing the soap out of his hair.

“AAA-AA!” he shouted, pointing to the bottle, then to the shelf. He was really kind of perturbed now.

“Okay,” I said, and moved the shampoo bottle to its normal resting place. “That better?”

He picked up a ball and started splashing, happy again. The rest of the evening was a breeze.

He could use a few words by then, but a month or so later they were coming fast. He knew “Mama,” “Daddy,” “ball,” “doggie” and dozens of other nouns by the New Year. Then one day in early spring, he took the broom from me and started pushing it proudly across the kitchen. As he did, he showed off the use of his first verb:

“I helping!” he said excitedly, looking back to make sure we were watching.

Aaaah, Virgo, I thought.

A few months later, as we returned from a big grocery store trip, Alan and I were busy ferrying bags from the car to the kitchen. We got all the bags in during the time it took our son to carry one loaf of bread inside. When the child returned for more, only to find out there were none to be had, he burst into tears and stood facing the corner of the room.

My heart sank. He was very ashamed about something — but what? I crouched down to him and tried to find out, but he was crying too hard to get the words out. I turned him toward me and held him until the sobbing subsided. Then he said simply, “I didn’t help.”

A couple months later, the same message: He screamed when I strapped him into the grocery cart — not, I finally found out, because he wanted to roam free but, as he put it, “Because then I’m not helping.”

And even later: “Can I help make pancakes?” “Can I help fold clothes?” “Can I help plant carrots?”

And proudly, and often: “I helped! I helped!” Gleefully, even.

It sank in slowly, this lesson in Virgo. The Dragon not only values helping but actually identifies as a helper, deeply. It’s what he feels he has to bring to the world. When he’s doing it, he feels so completely in his element that he glows.

And yet, of course, the downside of Virgo is there in spades, too. The Dragon regularly corrects people’s word usage and pronunciation. He is very hard on himself when he does something “wrong,” by his definition or ours. His bedroom must be in such precise order that it often takes more than an hour to settle him into sleep. (But his definition of “precise order” changes on a daily basis, so we can never guess what’s right from day to day!) Certain clothes are verboten (but, again, we never know which ones) because they’re the wrong color, or the wrong picture, or too tickley today. He is a very picky eater. He must have clean hands.

And then there are the trés Virgo quirks. He cannot abide “breaks” between lines in drawing or writing; every corner and connection must be closed. He seems to have a Rain Man kind of photographic mind. He insists that the driver not start the car before everyone is inside with doors closed. He collects small rocks. He loves feeding fish.

I’m convinced that, without knowing the Dragon’s chart, I would miss the connections between these things. They might simply be funny stories to share, traits to wonder at, irritants to quell. But knowing his chart, I believe, helps me tolerate and celebrate even the things I would normally find annoying (except for the sleep challenges. I don’t think I’ll ever like that).

Mothering the Dragon has made me a fuller person, presented me with my own Virgo-ness in a way that helps me cope with it better, grow into it, embrace it. From that very first look at his silent, focused face, until this morning when we laughed together at how the birthday candles melted into his pancakes, we have all grown deeper into ourselves because of this child.

And so. Happy Birthday to all of us.

But first, these crows didn’t showcase the bloodletting and bodily trauma normally associated with accidental encounters with cars. [...]]]> I’ve come across two dead crows on my morning walks recently in the Los Angeles foothills. In years past I’d just shudder a bit, step aside and let the faint whiff of flying-rodent death wisp away on the breeze.

But first, these crows didn’t showcase the bloodletting and bodily trauma normally associated with accidental encounters with cars. And second, Alan had informed-slash-reminded me that mysteriously deceased birds in these parts could be indicators of West Nile Virus.

So I regretfully interrupted the obsessive ruminating I love to do on my walks and, instead, repeated to myself, for the last 10 minutes of my walk, the address where lay this morning’s particular dead bird. Neatly decapitated, if you want to know the truth. As if a polite coyote had removed the lid from the tureen to see what kind of soup was inside, then gone on his way when he saw what it was.

When I got home, I Googled, then telephoned, the state’s vector control hotline. The kind lady on the other end took my name, address and phone number, then asked the location of the dead bird, its color, its size, how long it had been there. I could hear the clickety-clack of fingertips on keyboard as I gave her all the information.

Then she said, in a foreboding yet lilting voice, “Would you be willing — ”

And I knew what she was going to say. And I wished I’d given her a different name, address, phone number so I couldn’t be reached when I hung up the phone quickly.

Which I didn’t do. I let her keep talking. ” — to take a double plastic bag — ”

No, no, no, no, no. Dammit. I knew it. It’s not that I’d never seen death before; in fact, Alan once gently reprimanded me for bringing home a dead snake from a walk. It was flat. I thought the patterns were pretty.

” — and return to the location to pick it up?”

I thought, I could say no. What were they going to do?

But I didn’t, because I am a Good Citizen. I got a certificate in sixth grade that said so.

“Ummm…sure,” I said. She gave me further instructions, and I wrote them down, even though my mind was already back at the streetside, the bird — mysteriously — in much gorier condition than when I’d left it.

When I got off the phone, I gathered a rake, a dustpan, thick rubber gloves and — not a double plastic bag, not a triple plastic bag, but, yes, a quadruple plastic bag. I threw my provisions in the back of the truck and drove the half-mile to the bird.

I left the car running and the driver’s side door open because, you know, I might have to make a quick getaway from the dead bird. I worked quickly and quietly, all business. I threw away the rubber gloves when I got home and washed my hands three times in near-scalding water.

And then I went to look at my horoscope. Because that’s what astrologers do: Feeling depressed? What’s up with Saturn in my chart? Feeling confused? What’s got my Neptune? Dead bird on the porch? Check out the 8th house!

Of course, it’s never so simple as all that.

My collaboration with today’s transits (Aries Moon transiting my 8th House in exact opposition to Uranus, sextile Mars in Aquarius in my 6th and semi-sextile Saturn on the MC) might have been less institutional, more impetuous, had I not that looming specter of Saturn perched high atop my natal chart like — well, like a crow screeching from a treetop. Were it not for that Saturn, and a couple other things like, I don’t know, my solid upbringing, I might actually have hung up on the hotline when I had the chance. Or I might have just plucked it up with my bare hands on the spot, tossed it into the nearest trash can and forgotten about it.

What I love about astrology, yet what makes it so frustrating for people who want it to be simple — A plus B must always equal winning the lottery — is that it has room for complexity, diversity and that fearsome wild beast called free will. A Moon-Mars-Uranus ambivalence figure (as the Hubers call it when an opposition, sextile and trine form a triangle) might manifest one way for me, another way for you depending on transits, progressions, other factors in the chart and things like upbringing, environment and beliefs about the self. Which, of course, are all reflected in the chart as well.

So although picking up the dead, possibly virus-infested, bird grossed me out beyond belief, I’m glad — now — that I didn’t hang up on the hotline. When Saturn gets out of balance, it’s so easy to crawl under a rock and give into fear or a sense of inadequacy. And I’ve certainly done that plenty in my life. But Saturn also comes with conscience, and with an awareness of the consequences of one’s actions.

The incidence of West Nile in L.A. County is way up from last year. There are kids in these parts, and other vulnerable folk, who just can’t put up a winning fight against it. I had to figure out a way to do what I had to do to support my conscience, distasteful as it was, instead of my disgust.

Saturn, in the Greek tradition, was called Kronos. That “Kr” element is enough to remember me to karma. Say what you will about nature taking its course — it’s just not good karma to let deadly viruses fester in your neighborhood.

And so there I was, this morning, with the rubber gloves, the quadruple plastic bag and the excessive hand-washing.

Ah! Saturn lives.

Photo credits: Crow, Flag, Telescope

In other words: No. It’s not obvious at all. Yoga is all about the body, isn’t it? While astrology is, well, a little arcane and [...]]]> Putting yoga and astrology together in one workshop or retreat seems, at first blush, a little like sitting an elephant down at a computer and saying, “See? Now do you get it?”

In other words: No. It’s not obvious at all. Yoga is all about the body, isn’t it? While astrology is, well, a little arcane and out-there, a kind of voodoo psychobabble — right? So wouldn’t a workshop that brings the two together be more like two classes running alongside each other?

You would think, but you’d be wrong.

At the core of both yoga and astrology is an understanding of how energy operates in our lives — the energy to express oneself, to establish security, to learn, relate, experience and love. Yoga understands that energy as gaining expression through the body, while astrology views the psyche as the central medium. But both disciplines have identified the same basic energies coursing through our lives.

As mind-body integration is becoming more accepted and energized throughout the west, yoga and astrology both are growing disciplines. So it seems a natural time to explore how the roots of these two powerful and ancient technologies are connected, and how they can twine together for the benefit of individuals and humanity as a whole.

This is the principle on which my Yoga & Astrology work is grounded. I hope this little story, and the explanation following, will further illuminate the way we work in our workshops and retreats. And I hope it will intrigue you enough to come to one of our upcoming Los Angeles workshops or even our week-long retreat in Taos this fall.

The Story of Rapunzel
Originally told by the Brothers Grimm

After many years of barrenness, a poor couple was expecting a child, but they had little money for food. The pregnant wife craved radishes, which could only be gotten by the husband stealing them from the garden of the witch next door under cover of darkness. When the husband was finally caught, the witch demanded the unborn child in recompense. The frightened husband agreed.

After their child – a girl named Rapunzel – was born, the despondent couple brought her to the witch. When Rapunzel was 12 years old, the witch locked her in a tower with no doors and only one high window. Using Rapunzel’s long hair as a ladder, the witch brought food and drink to the tower. One day, a prince spied the witch climbing Rapunzel’s hair. He waited until night, then called to the girl and climbed her hair.

The prince visited nightly from then on, and soon the young couple was in love. By and by, they hatched a plan to free Rapunzel from the tower. But before they could carry it out, the witch discovered that Rapunzel was pregnant. Furious, the witch cut off Rapunzel’s hair and threw her from the tower. That night, the prince called to Rapunzel and, when her hair unfurled from the high window, he climbed it. He was astonished to see the witch’s face when she reached the top. She pushed him away from the window; he fell to the ground and was blinded by thorns when he landed.

Rapunzel, pregnant with twins, and the prince with gouged-out eyes, wandered separately in the wilderness for many years. One day, the prince heard Rapunzel singing near a well and approached, calling her name. They fell into each other’s arms, and their tears of joy restored the prince’s sight. He took Rapunzel and their children to the castle to live happily ever after.

Our Capricorn workshop last January began with this simple tale, which is rich with images and themes that evoke the Capricorn archetype. We then unpacked those themes, our eyes ever on Capricorn, to better understand the dynamics of the sign and how it might operate in our own lives. For example, we discussed the following themes, each of which is the sort of challenge a Capricorn person* might face:

• The poor couple had tried for many years to conceive a child but could not. They continued trying until finally their goal was within sight.
• The shortcut and dishonesty taken by the father to satisfy his wife’s temporary craving had disastrous results, hugely exacerbated by his fear and inability to stand up to the witch and protect his child.
• The witch, representing the opposite imbalance, became drastically overprotective of Rapunzel, locking her in a high tower and infantilizing her.
• Rapunzel was not allowed to touch her feet to the ground, to gain life experiences and build her own competence, survival instincts and independent selfhood.
• Rapunzel had to have tangible resources and a well-laid plan – aided by her own animus, or inner masculine – in order to reach the ground and begin experiencing life.
• But she also had to have the courage to overthrow her own limitations in the form of overprotectiveness, clinging to obligation, and so forth.
• Finally, she had to wander in the wilderness by herself. She could not again cling to another outer authority; she had to build her own inner resources by struggling on her own before coming back – more mature, more competent, freer – to the external partner.

As we explored these insights, each person identified a goal they’d been trying to reach and examined possible instances of self-sabotage or rigidity and limitation. We discussed the importance of having a “strong spine” in order to stand up for oneself and to individuate, then did some muscle-testing to find out how strong we could physically resist simple toxins like sugar and caffeine. Muscle-testing was followed by a yoga set for spine strengthening which was, in turn, followed by another round of muscle-testing. Participants were amazed at how much more they could resist after a single session of spine-strengthening yoga!

To counter the inflexibility and outdated assumptions that can accompany a stance of strength, we then turned to consider flexibility. We discussed the roles played by the symbol of stone in the Rapunzel story and tried to identify some assumptions that had calcified each person’s ability to meet challenges and achieve goals. Yoga for flexibility followed this discussion, and then people were asked to return to their assumptions and try out how it felt to change them — no matter how outrageous the change!

The workshop concluded with a look at the last part of the Rapunzel story: the part where the main character is thrown out of the tower, pregnant with twins, to fend for herself in the wilderness. This crystallizes the Capricorn challenge of developing our inner authority so that we may choose strength and flexibility, community and individual, the straight path and deviations from it, with consciousness and self-possession. The workshop concluded with yoga for survival and vision, and a visualization that helped participants access that powerful and authoritative figure within themselves.

Each of our workshops operates on several levels like this, engaging body, mind, heart and imagination, and cross-pollinating story with physical activity, self-reflection, creative artwork, peer dialogue and more. Our Taos retreat this fall will also integrate visits to local sites such as Taos Indian Pueblo and the Rio Grande Gorge to see how the signs manifest in the landscape and human creations. It will cover the whole cycle of 12 signs in a six-day period — a challenge, to be sure, but one that you’ll come away from with profound insight and deeper self-knowledge.

I hope you’ll join us.

—

* And by “Capricorn person,” I don’t only mean people with Capricorn as their sun sign. Anyone whose chart contains strong Capricorn energy — which can appear in a number of different ways — would qualify as a “Capricorn person” in my estimation. And certainly all of us could stand to know about the dynamics surrounding goal achievement and individuation!

I was deeply moved, while there, by the way different archetypal energies are expressed not only through our personalities and relationships but also through the landscape [...]]]> I spent a few days in Taos, New Mexico last week, checking out San Geronimo Lodge and the larger community in preparation for my Yoga & Astrology retreat there October 12-19.

I was deeply moved, while there, by the way different archetypal energies are expressed not only through our personalities and relationships but also through the landscape itself — both natural and humanmade.

I’ve explored this idea a bit through posts like The Slow, Salty Dance of Taurus and Landscape of the Horoscope, but the phenomenon really landed for me during my visit to Taos.

As my dear friend and mentor, Pam Tyler, toured me through and around town, we noticed that certain features of the landscape reflected the dynamics of different polarities. For example, driving out of town, you cross over an utterly flat, seemingly endless plain. Suddenly, then, after a dozen miles or so, the earth just opens — there’s no other way to describe it. The deep, long, narrow gorge of the Rio Grande grins up at you, its thin murky waters sitting still and quiet at the bottom.

I was awed into silence myself by the Taurus-Scorpio energy in this one staggering slit of land.

Similarly, but also profoundly different, the Taos Indian Pueblo spoke of the mother-father-child energies inherent in the Cancer-Capricorn polarity, while the drive up, and then down, the High Road fed into my understanding of the Virgo-Pisces polarity.

What astounds me the most is not that our world reflects the eternal truths held within each archetypal complex: That makes sense, after all. No, what astounds me, really, is the unfailing consistency with which each archetype is upheld within symbols of integrity and longevity. And, furthermore, that the polarity can always be found nearby.

For example, any home in the world could be said to reflect Cancer energy. But Taos Pueblo is a remarkable symbol of the Cancer-Capricorn polarity archetype. Not only is it a home, it’s a tribal home that has been occupied continuously for more than a millennium, and the tribe considers nearby Blue Lake to be the original source of its people. Though tourists are allowed within the pueblo, the Indians protect their people, beliefs and structures with care. All these are components of the Cancerian archetype: mother, child, community, home, history, sourcing, birthing, self-protection. They all awaken together when ideas of mother, child and nurturing are aroused.

Yet Pam’s and my tour guide was a young college student who had left the pueblo to attend college and aspires to make films after going to the Art Institute of Chicago. “I’m just so tired of seeing movies,” he said, “where Indians are portrayed as poor, drunk or stupid.”

Back home for summer vacation, he embodied the Capricorn polarity of individuation — moving out from the tribe, distinguishing oneself from the community, the old ways, the accepted path. He was walking the polarity tightrope, balancing both worlds within his single frame.

Other sites, too, renewed my respect for the eternal truths that course through our daily lives. I’m excited to dig into preparations for the October retreat, where we can ponder even further how the horoscope’s polarities live and breathe, in ways big and small, all around us.

I hope you can come explore Taos with me in this way.

Gemini is sometimes [...]]]> The cusp of Gemini barely at our backs, it’s hard not to think about thresholds, margins and in-between spaces, since sign ruler Mercury (Hermes in Greek myth) is the messenger, the go-between, the slipster, the one breezing in and out of the doorways from here to there, all backwards sometimes, upside down, inside out.

Gemini is sometimes written off as the chipper trickster, the perfect party-goer, the motormouth or chatterbox or data bank who can catalogue and spit back astounding amounts of seemingly useless information, from restaurant menus to the latest e-gadget specs to the most crucial words needed to get around town in a dozen different foreign cities.

But lying beneath all the motion, the movement, the hyperactivity is just that: the need to get around town, to be the pen connecting the dots between various points on the map, to be not just the mover of news and information, but the agent of exchange, the one whose vast knowledge of places and people and pieces can move a coin from one person’s hand and into another’s, and a bag of spices back in the other direction.

Hermes is the consummate traveler, the guide of souls from life in this world to the world beyond, the underworld where everything was upside-down and not at all as it seemed. He is Alice in Wonderland’s rabbit hole, the Little Prince who questioned with simple words the old man set in his ways, the Peter Pan in each of us who refuses to grow up and so is unafraid of death, of risk, of taking off out a window in the wild faithful flight of the young.

Hermes is also the patron of commerce and thieves, who rely on the movement of hands to trade and grasp and take — yes, even thieves; Hermes is not, like Jupiter/Zeus, concerned with what’s right, with moral context or human righteousness. Like Mercury and Gemini, Hermes is an amoral energy — a facilitator, an agent, a gatekeeper, not a judge. He is the messenger, not the decider. It’s not the content of the message that’s important, it’s the fact of being the messenger, of being the agent of exchange, the carrier of information, the connector. The glue along the edges.

Hermes can span the margin between two people to create a momentary connection, an exchange, a circulation of energy from one to the other and back and beyond. When the breath moves in and out of the nose, stopping briefly at the top of the inhale before making its quick descent, its release back out into the world, that is a Hermes task. We take in, we give back, we take in, we give back. It’s exchange; it’s one for one; it’s tit for tat. There is no judgment — no thought, even, really, to speak of. It just is.

It’s not that Hermes, Mercury, Gemini are thoughtless, it’s more that there are so many thoughts that require circulation, there is little time to stop and think about each one, no life energy allocated to differentiating one from the other. That’s not Gemini’s job. It’s someone else’s job: the recipient, perhaps; the person or people affected. Gemini, appropriately symbolized by twins, by two, spans the margins between two people, provides the pathways for exchange, lives in the margins around the boundaries of each of us, connects them up with other people’s margins, creates doorways where none had before existed, in order to help each of us travel between worlds from which we would otherwise isolate, retreat or shy away.

Ironically, Gemini — a sign so brimming with information — is often quite misunderstood. It is not lightheaded or fizzy. Its currency, though often invisible, is the currency of life. It is astounding and crucial and encompassing.

And, yes, it can be a lot of fun at parties.

doorway breath