It’s probably a crazy time to embark on an astrology course, but then the times they are a-crazy and, and I’ve learnt not to put portentous signs in the crazy box. It seldom works; they’ll just resurface in a crazier form outside of you if you ignore them. Which is, really, says Kevin Burk, author of Astrology: A Comprehensive Guide to Classical Interpretation, what astrology is all about. Though it can be a powerful predictive tool, it is not a religion or science, but a study of the cycles of planets which follows three laws: The Law of Beginnings, the Law of Correspondences and the Law of Alchemy, “which states that all energies are inside of us, if we suppress or deny them, however, they will manifest outside of us.”
Which is exactly what psychologist Carl Jung, who relied a lot on psychic archetypes, said in another way centuries later. The trouble with the western world, says Burk, is that ever since Rene Descartes sprouted his Cartesian Theory of Duality, a clever system devised to keep science and theology separate so that intellectuals wouldn’t be burnt at the stake, 400 years ago, the western world has found it difficult to assimilate mind and matter, material and supernatural.
There are always boxes, straight lines, and rational rigid codes to keep the esoteric separate from the material. Slowly lines are blurring again, like they did in ancient days when body, mind and spirit were considered a unit, inoperable without all parts. Einstein, who saw his life in terms of music, and said if he wasn’t a physicist would have been a musician, had a keen interest in alchemy. His oft-quoted axiom “imagination is more important than knowledge” not only produced the Theory of Relativity but also an appreciation of creativity and the interconnectivity of life both inter and intrapersonally.
Whether it’s law or not, I can vouch that there be cycles and forces beyond the seen. Besides the fact that Lord Hades, ruler of Pluto, is apparently playing havoc with my career scales this year and making me dig deep within for my raison d’opus, my course sign-up arrived on 7 July, the day of the lunar eclipse, which fell exactly on my IC in Capricorn on the cusp of the fourth house of family, directly opposite the Midheaven in Cancer on the cusp of the tenth house of career. I have yet to come to grips with the finer nuances of my chart, which Burk enigmatically calls a blueprint of the psyche, but exploring the kernel of it is partly what drove me to venture off the erratic freelance journalism path down this rabbit hole.
Apparently my Sag Moon in the third house of communication, or the house of heresy in Babylonian times, shows a distinct desire to express opinions, preferably in writing, about issues that concern me in order to help others. I recently got myself quite heated about an article I was to write about the Jarawa, a tribe under threat of tourism, on the Andaman Isands, and asked myself why. The answer was in my midheaven, the finer nuances of which I shall explore here later.
For now, until I gain more creative mastery over the chemicals in my spiritual cocktail, everything is broken up and dancing.
“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul.”