Depth Astrology

A friend sent me a lovely, aching poem this morning. “In Knowledge of Young Boys” by Toi Derricotte reads, in part,

i knew you before you had a mother,
when you were newtlike, swimming
… when your connections
belonged only to yourself,
when you had no history
to hook on to,
barnacle …
i knew you when you were all
eyes and a cocktail,
blank as the sky of a mind,
a root, neither ground nor placental;
not yet
red with the cut nor astonished
by pain, one terrible eye
open in the center of your head
to night, turning

People often ask me whether a birth time is legitimate for astrological purposes if labor has been induced, or the baby was born by C-section, or a child has come prematurely. “Of course,” I tell them. “The birth time is the birth time.” It marks the primordial energetic imprint of the universe on the inhaling, exhaling, screaming, shocked, squishy little being when it emerges from the newty swamp of the womb onto the dry horizon of earth.

The other night my husband and I were discussing psychic phenomena and related curiosities with a skeptic friend. I enjoy these kinds of discussions very much because they force me to do some challenging mental acrobatics, to grapple with important concepts like doubt and proof and faith.

Sometime during the evening, our thoughts turned to telekinetics — spoon-bending, moving things with your mind, et cetera. Our friend said, “Moving things requires energy. How could something move if you weren’t applying energy to it?”

Astrologers don’t often talk about the structure of the horoscope chart. They’re concerned, instead, with the movements of planets and stars: how the heavenly bodies move across the skies to interact with each other, to brand upon each individual a small, unique form of their unfathomable universal energies.

They want to know how each person will express a Moon square Saturn or a Mars trine Uranus or any other of the seemingly infinite combinations of stars, planets and houses that describe our lives. They want to tell people how these energies may play out in their lives, what to watch for, how to manage the difficult ones delicately, how to exploit the positive ones for maximum gain.

Astrology is the study of patterns as they play out through time.

Sometimes we get caught in an unhealthy pattern and call it a bad habit or an addiction. Other patterns grow into rituals that mark certain moments: beginnings, endings, transitions, the rhythms of the seasons. Still other patterns become routines — neither healthy nor unhealthy, just the usual way of doing things, until something comes along to change, upset or improve old standbys.

It’s pretty easy to tell when something’s a routine as opposed to an addiction, a rhythm as opposed to a habit. Though each word means essentially the same thing, we can feel it in our bones when the pattern is unhealthy, or comforting, or neutral. But the etymology of these words can give us further insight into how the things we do repeatedly — Saturday morning chores, for example, or singing a particular lullaby to a child, or that six-pack you just can’t get through the evening without — affect the deep psyche.

I don’t use astrology to predict events. I use it to help make sense of life.

Of course, I have other tools, too, like feelings, family, friends and faith. Astrology isn’t always the first place I go, especially in the midst of tragedy, but I often end up there, searching for clarity, groping toward meaning.

So when a dear friend was killed this weekend in a horrible accident, my first reaction was gasping disbelief. Second came a deep and jagged grief. Third, a need to connect with other friends who loved her. Then, as the reality coursed through me, came numbness, and emptiness.

This morning, because I am who I am, I awoke yearning to understand the senselessness of her death through the perspective of my craft of astrology.

Why does it hurt so much that she’s gone?

Why can’t I grasp that she went the way she did?

What are we supposed to do, anyway, with grief?

I’m not pretentious enough to claim I found answers. But below are my thoughts, the small bits of meaning I glimpsed as I pondered the sudden, premature, tragic death of a beautiful, life-loving woman.

I wrote on Friday about the way astrology views the usual cycle of energy that guides an event, whether it’s the blossoming of a flower, the unfolding of a life or the movement of seasons. There is output, then enjoyment, then — usually; hopefully — slow shifts that dismantle the old order and prepare for the next cycle. I pointed out how important it is to take time when contemplating great changes to an old way of being, how rushing change could lead to crisis. I thought I was talking about politics, and money.

The suddenness of Heather’s death interrupts our sense of how time unfolds. Life is supposed to spin out evenly from its spool, one long flowing arc at a time. When it doesn’t, we say things like: “How can this be?” And: “I can’t believe it.” And: “It just doesn’t make sense.” A sudden, tragic end to a life doesn’t fit into the expected patterns of our mind, nor the gently sloping pathways of our hearts. Life is supposed to allow us some time to get used to change, to learn what we need ahead of time, to shift our gaze toward the next phase. It’s not meant to thrust us into loss all at once. At the very, very least, life is supposed to allow us a bit of time to say goodbye.

When death comes unanticipated, we don’t know what to do with ourselves: our hands, our voices, the alarm rising up in our chests. Our minds: What are we supposed to even think?

Often, then, not knowing what to do, we turn to the specifics of the departed person herself. This is the other way I can look to astrology to make sense of this loss. Because it occurred to me that, while astrology views each planet and sign as a symbol of an internal personal trait, other people in our lives also carry some traits for us — especially, perhaps, the ones we’re not able to manifest well ourselves. We need them to show us the way, the proper expression of laughter, or confidence, or drivenness.

I kept remembering, yesterday, how much Heather simply embraced life — how deeply she drank in the pleasures of the world all around her. She seemed always engaged, passionate about everything from coffee to music to movies to the people she loved. She laughed easily. She teased and admonished and was always good-natured. She seemed to let troubles roll off her back, shooing them away like flies.

Other traits might stand out more for other people, depending who they are and how they related with her. But whatever the specific experience, in relationship generally, each person brings something that the other needs in their life. Sometimes it’s the thing that drives us crazy; sometimes it’s the thing we most admire. Sometimes we don’t even notice the trait till they are gone. And when they are gone, we are left holding our hands out, waiting for more of what they brought: that passion, or that teasing, or that laughter. And when it doesn’t come — again, we don’t know what to do.

We have, then, to find her elsewhere — not to replace her, but to fill the emptiness her death leaves in our lives. Maybe, hopefully, we find her gifts in ourselves.

So my questions now are: What gifts did Heather give me that I could not accept when she was alive? What traits did I unconsciously ask her to hold that I could not yet make a part of myself? What do I need to become, now that she is no longer there to be it for me? I look at the list above and know immediately.

And so to celebrate Heather’s life, and to defy the tragedy of her death, I promise myself, and my family, and my friends, to cling less fiercely to worry — to let it go — so I can sink much more into each delectable moment life hands me, the way I saw her do.

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