Depth Astrology

In a recent post I asserted that there is no clear archetype of nature in the horoscope. I want to take that back, kind of. There are actually several symbols that could be different faces of the nature archetype — for example Mars’s wild instinct and Venus’s sensuousness and the abundance of Jupiter — but I’m going to go out on a limb (ha!) and call out the least “wild” of all archetypes as the horoscope’s fullest embodiment of nature.

Funny, after what seems to be a lifetime of being female-oriented — going to a women’s college, working in lots of women-owned and women-dominated businesses (including at a women’s PAC), being generally very pro-female and pro-feminist — boys seem to be springing up everywhere in my life these days. I blame Jung and the tension of opposites.

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:

It is archetypally surprising to see young and old, freshness and decay, coupled together in the same image.

This image puts me in mind of Robert Hand’s description of Venus opposition Saturn: youth, lightness and spontaneity juxtaposed with age, graveness and ponderousness. Hand says:

Though I believe it is hanging in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, I was unable to discover anything more about this painting, the photo of which is this week’s Picture of the Week.

There are two different schools of thought about womanhood in astrology. (Well, truth be told, there are probably many, many more. But I’m only going to discuss two of them here.) While all astrologers, to my knowledge, recognize Venus as the holder of feminine energy, most western astrologers also ascribe the mother role, and general feminine traits, to the Moon. The Huber school, on the other hand, says the Moon is gender-neutral — pertaining to emotional and contact needs — whereas Saturn represents the mother principle: It is keyed toward physical security, survival, protection, boundaries and attachment. It is most comfortable near the bottom of the chart, where it can grow roots and provide stability and assurance to the chart native. In the midst of crisis, it is this sturdy sort of mother that we all seek, not the mother figure suggested by the Moon.