Apollon Issue One

Apollon
The Journal of Psychological Astrology
The Sun-god And The Astrological Sun - Liz Greene

Creativity, Spontaneity, Independence: Three Children Of The Devil - Adolf Guggenbhl-Craig
Whom Doth The Grail Serve? - Anne Whitaker Fire And The Imagination - Darby Costello Leonard Cohens "Secret Chart" - John Etherington
Issue 1 October 1998 6
Apollo with the ecliptic worn as a sash. This figure is from the 2nd half of the 5th century BCE, and is now at the Vatican Museum. Figleaf courtesy of the Vatican. Photo: E. Greene
Cover Picture
The Chariot of Apollo
Odilon Redon Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam The French symbolist artist Odilon Redon, b. April 20th 1840, d. July 6th 1916, isolated by frail health and parental indifference at an early age, peopled his loneliness with imaginary beings, as he was later to people his works Joan Siegfried, Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia
Apollon
The Journal of Psychological Astrology
Published by: The Centre for Psychological Astrology BCM Box 1815 London WC1N 3XX England Tel/Fax: +44-181-749 2330 www.astrologer.com/cpa Directors: Admin: Dr Liz Greene Charles Harvey Juliet Sharman-Burke
Contents
Editorial This Creativity Lark Dermod Moore The Sun-god and the Astrological Sun The Mythology and Psychology of Apollo Liz Greene Creativity, Spontaneity, Independence: Three Children of the Devil Adolf Guggenbhl-Craig The Sun in the Tarot and the Horoscope Juliet Sharman-Burke Whom doth the Grail Serve? A Personal Quest in Pursuit of Vocation Anne Whitaker The Point in the Circle: The Image of Apollo in the Greco-Roman World Brian Hobley Fire and the Imagination: The Heart of Our Story Darby Costello Leonard Cohen's "Secret Chart" John Etherington Reflections Experiencing Astrology Sarah Bartlett Anima Mundi Astrology in the Theatre of the World Charles Harvey CPA Seminar Schedule and CPA Press Order Form - centre pages Apollon
polon haploun iepaieon he who causes the heavenly bodies to move together in harmony the simple, a euphemism for the complexity of the oracle, which is also honest to heal, also to throw or strike (with consciousness)
from Greek and Egyptian Mythologies, compiled by Yves Bonnefoy, transl. Wendy Doniger University of Chicago Press, 1992
16
24 26
Distributed by: John Etherington Midheaven Bookshop 396 Caledonian Road London N1 1DN England Tel: +44-171-607 4133 Fax: +44-171-700 6717 Edited by: Dermod Moore 4 Midhope House Midhope Street London WC1H 8HJ England Tel: +44-171-278 9434 Fax: +44-171-209 1648 www.astrologer.com/apollon [email protected] Subscriptions: Please see centre pages Advertising: Rates available on request please contact the Editor Contributions: Please do not send unsolicited articles. Please send outlines only, with a SAE, to the Editor.
32
44
49 58
60
Copyright: 1998 Centre for Psychological Astrology All rights reserved
Editorial
This creativity lark
My view of our planet was a glimpse of Brian Hobleys research into the archaeology of ancient Greece and Rome, to the divinity. Edgar Mitchell, Apollo XIV astronaut intensely personal and moving autobiography of Anne Whitaker, which brings her onsciousness, creativity, individuality; chart, and therefore our understanding of these are goals that our Western cul- astrology, to life. In Darby Costellos piece ture currently espouses while we hurtle on Fire and the Imagination we are treatheadlong to the end of this Millennium. As ed to a dazzling fireworks display of fiery astrologers, we associate these qualities symbolism, that leaves one basking in her with the Sun, the heart of our psyches; we infectious intuition; in Charles Harveys encourage our clients to strive for these elegant exposition of the psychology of qualities almost without question. These global economics and politics, he gives are self-evidently good characteristics, some idea of the backdrop against which our culture tells us; and every day there we play out our lives. are new therapies and remedies and e chose the name Apollon schools of thought aimed at invoking because first and foremost he repthem. Its time, however, to take a serious resents the striving for excellence. And yet look at what they mean. We do not have in spite of this admirable pretension, we to go as far as Adolf Guggenbhl-Craig, also chose the name Apollon, as opposed mischievously playing Devils Advocate in to the more familiar Roman version of his this issue, and see this drive to creativity as name, because there is already a magazine pathology. But we have to look at both called Apollo, which caters to the antique sides of a thing to know it, not only the trade. As with everything, the mundane, side presented to us. The brighter the trivial details involved in bringing a dream light, the darker the shadow. to reality can cause one to stumble, if one hope that this magazine will be of inter- is not careful. In choosing the original est not only to astrologers, but to any- Greek name we are, however, consciousone interested in the process of healing, of ly reaching back further to his Gentleman growth. Mythology offers us such a mine of Olympus nature; the only god for of information on human psychology that whom all other gods would stand when one does not have to accept the divinato- he entered their presence. ry aspect of astrology to appreciate the s far as I can make out, the last magriches that lie therein. azine to be entitled Apollon was s astrology magazines go, Apollon is published by the poet Nikolai Gumilev perhaps short on traditional astrolog- from 1909 -1916; it was the journal of the ical articles; with the admirable exception acmeist literary movement of Russia. of John Etheringtons knowledgeable and Acmeists aspired to qualities of strength, conwell-researched foray into the life of creteness and clarity; but such admirable Leonard Cohen. What we are aiming for intentions didnt prevent Gumilev from being is a wide spectrum of thought and experi- executed in 1921, for alleged involvement in ence on a particular theme; and in this an anti-Soviet conspiracy. To fully honour issue, I hope you agree weve achieved it. Apollon attracts attention; his example serves There are articles ranging in style from the to remind us of how ambivalent this attention can be. academic earthiness of
Dermod Moore is a Dubliner. A former actor with Irelands National Theatre, the Abbey, he is a writer and columnist, and spends a lot of time staring at a computer screen going blind. He is in training as a Psychosynthesis therapist, and practices as a psychological astrologer in Londons Neals Yard. He moderates the discussion group on the Internet on psychological astrology.
page 4 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998
n attempting to understand how Apollo lives on in contemporary culture, I searched the Internet for his name. The Internet, manifestation of the recent Uranus/Neptune conjunction, is as close as we can get to a collective mind at work, and observing it has proved endlessly fascinating for me in my work and play. As well as the expected mythological references, I found mention of the ballet by Ballanchine/Stravinsky at the New York City Ballet, some browsing software called Apollon, Apollongym, a tanning salon in New Jersey, and a Greek football team. I learned that Apollon is also the name for a proposal for a new scientific experiment to measure the gluon spin distribution of the nucleon by polarised photoproduction of J/Psi mesons. Theres also a website called The Apollon Galleries devoted to the male nude, which requests visitors who are very religious or wish to enforce their values upon others to kindly stay out. owever the vast amount of references to Apollo are of course related to the American project to land on the Moon. It is endlessly fascinating how scientists choose their nomenclature. In choosing Apollo as the name of their project they were perhaps missing the point; surely a Moon goddess should have been chosen, if it were the Moon we were trying to reach. But as the decades slip by since that August night (in Europe, anyway) in 1969, when, at the age of six, I was woken up by my father to watch history in the making, it is possible to place that quintessentially Apollonian adventure in perspective. s Liz Greene writes in this issue, we cannot directly hear the wisdom the Sun contains except through our feelings, bodies, and imagination. In our effort to reach the Moon, with two competing superpowers vying to be first in the race, we gained not so much an insight into the Moon, as was expected, but into ourselves. For the first time we saw our home, the lonely blue planet suspended in inky blackness. Our urge was to reach out, to colonize, to inhabit, to possess our satellite with what were undeniably thrust-
ing, phallic rockets; but the end result was so much different to what we could have imagined. sing the Apollo missions as a metaphor for our own individual journeys, we can see how paradoxical our efforts at becoming more conscious are; how quixotic and yet inspiring, how transient and yet indelible. The leap of the imagination that saw us break out of the realms of what we thought was possible left behind nothing but a few flags, a few bits of scrap aluminium, and a couple of golfballs on the surface of our neighbour, who remains unbeholden to us. But what we brought back was the beginning of a new global awareness, a self-consciousness hitherto inconceivable. echnology, which had brought so much change to our world, so much progress and so much destruction, was being put to use in a way that satisfied no urge other than to grow. If the end result of our journeys to the Moon - which cost several human lives, as well as an obscene amount of money, considering the poverty in the world - left us with nothing but a few rocks, a few useful technological advances, and some pretty pictures, then that is a salutary reminder of the transience of our own lives, and the significance of finding meaning and perspective somewhere along the way in our struggle for growth. eve loosely based this issue on Apollo himself, and the theme of creativity. Each issue well attempt to address different facets of the mythology of the solar god, and in so doing, we hope, learn a bit more about ourselves. We hope you enjoy it.
Launch of Apollo XI
The Sun-god and the Astrological Sun

The mythology and psychology of Apollo
In this article, Liz Greene sets her gaze on the Sun and the solar god Apollo. She writes in her sparkling, lucid style about the main mythic functions of Apollo, namely cosmocrator, prophet, breaker of family curses, healer, and culture-bringer, and the relevance of these to understanding the astrological Sun.
Liz Greene holds a Doctorate in Psychology and the Diploma of the Faculty of Astrological Studies, and is a qualified Jungian analyst. She works as a professional astrologer and analyst, and teaches and lectures extensively throughout Europe. She is a Patron of the Faculty of Astrological Studies. She is the author of many books on astrological and psychological themes, including Saturn, Relating, Astrology for Lovers, the Astrology of Fate, and The Astrological Neptune and the Quest for Redemption. She lives in Switzerland.
hat is a poet? He is a man of religious experience whose creative gift enables him to communicate spiritual truths to men. His poetry can bring deliverance from spiritual death, bringing his hearers to a new knowledge of their divine Creator, who gave him this special power. In this way souls that have been disordered can be healed, and the human relation with God may be restored when it has been impaired...This is the fruit and indeed the purpose of music and poetry, direct gifts from God to mankind. Elizabeth Henry, Orpheus and His Lute
yth and astrology have always been handmaidens, for both are symbolic expressions of the human perception of the cosmos. From Babylonian times onward, the planets, luminaries and fixed stars have represented not only forces or agents which influence or correspond with human affairs, but also characters in stories which express in imaginal form the archetypal patterns inherent in life and in the human psyche. The astrologer who is willing to explore the mythic background of the planets taps a rich resource of understanding and insight which can amplify and enhance our grasp of astrological symbolism; and this in turn makes us better astrologers because we can enter into the clients inner world and communicate our interpretations in language which touches the heart as well as the intellect. The importance of myth is nowhere more emphasised than in our interpretations of the astrological Sun, which is encrusted in myths from many ages and cultures. Keywords such as self-expression do not really help us; mythic images convey much more of the energy and intent of the Sun. And none of these mythic images is more relevant to the expression and meaning of the Sun in the individual horoscope than the nature and role of the Greek Sun-god Apollo (we have dropped the final n from the name in popular
usage, but his correct Greek name is Apollon). This deity stands behind not only the foundations of Western culture, but also behind many of the attributes which Christianity later appropriated and associated with Christ. pollo has been called the gentleman of Olympus, the most quintessentially Greek of all the Greek gods. In sculptures and frescoes he is invariably portrayed as beautiful and youthful; rarely clothed, his body is athletic and of those perfect proportions so idealised by the Greeks. But the origins of Apollo are far more ancient than classical Greece; archaeological evidence suggests that the beginning of his cult predates the Bronze Age. There are many mysteries surrounding the emergence of this god, not least his name, about which scholarly arguments still rage. We know of the origins of his Greek form as early as the 8th century BCE, and by the 5th century BCE he was associated not only with the Sun but also with prophecy, healing, the breaking of family curses, and the bringing of artistic inspiration (especially music and poetry) to human beings. These multiple attributes make him a difficult god to comprehend, for initially we may fail to see the connections between his many different faces. But the more we delve into Apollos many functions, the greater is our understanding of what the Sun really means in the horoscope.
Apollo the light-bringer
ust as the Sun itself was perceived in the ancient world as the giver of light, Apollo as the representative of the Sun was perceived as the giver of inner light. Know thyself was the dictum carved in stone at his shrine at Delphi, and this emphasises the importance of Apollo as a symbol of consciousness. The god was not understood as the physical Sun in the heavens; he was the carrier of the Sun, bearing it from East to West each day in his golden chariot. The physical Sun was remote and untouchable; it was the One, the essence of life itself, impossible to approach or fully comprehend. Apollos human form tells us he is a reflection of something within the human psyche - a vessel or carrier for the ineffable. It is not surprising that
Pythagoras and Plato both favoured Apollo, for philosophy in its most profound sense - the love of wisdom - is related to this process of acquiring consciousness in order to reconnect with what Plato called the eternal realities. Apollos role as breaker of family curses and slayer of the darkness was pre-eminent, and it was to him that those tormented by guilt from the past turned. In myth, his conflicts with female chthonic underworld deities such as the giant serpent Python and the terrible Erinyes or Furies mark him as the champion of that which is free over that which is bound by the forces of fate and ancestral compulsion. Yet although he is the conqueror of these forces, he also incorporates them into his worship; the Python becomes one of his chief symbols, not only in its serpent form in Greco-Roman iconography, but also through the priestess called Pythoness who communicated the gods oracle. These chthonic mother-deities were also honoured at Delphi through the presence of the omphalos or navel-stone, the centre of the earth, where the light of the Sun incarnated on earth. On coins issued at Delphi we may see the image of the omphalos or navel-stone as a point at the centre of a circle; the circle was associated with Apollo because of the great round of the Sun through the heavens, and because the circle is without beginning and without end and therefore suggests divinity and eternity. While there is no direct documentary evidence to suggest that the use of this image - the point in the circle - later gave rise to our astrological glyph for the Sun, first used during the Renaissance, the connection is impossible to ignore.
arise from ones childhood and family background. The Greek family curse is a vivid description of unresolved unconscious conflicts which wend their way from generation to generation, eventually arriving on the psychic doorstep of the identified patient (as he or she is known in family therapy) who acts out the burden of this unconscious inheritance through physical or psychological illness. Anyone who has experienced the power of compulsions - whether for drugs, alcohol, food, or through destructive or self-destructive behaviour - will know how impossible it is to reason these away, and often it is only through a prolonged and honest exploration of trapped feelings from the past that any release can come. The therapeutic process is thus an Apollonian process, not because it is intellectual, but because it is aimed at increasing consciousness and bringing light into the darkness. That which is kept in the dark cannot change or grow. Non-verbal therapies can also achieve this goal; Apollo is not biased toward any special school of psychological thought, as long as the process serves the growing sense of an inner self. The Sun in the horoscope is thus an image of something within us which is capable of forming a central and indestructible identity around which the horoscope revolves - an ego which can contain and perhaps even transform the various conflicts and imbalances which every horoscope possesses. Such conflicts and imbalances, if exacerbated by early difficulties without any conscious light to illuminate their origins and nature, can result in great suffering.
Apollo the cosmocrator

pollo is also the cosmocrator, the centre around whom the solar system revolves. In this role he is often portrayed in ancient art holding or wearing the zodiac wheel, for the zodiac is a representation of the ecliptic - the apparent path of the Sun around the earth - in imaginal form, reflecting a cycle of development which is embodied in the seasons and expressed also in the multi-levelled cycles of an individual life. (See images on inside front cover and overleaf.) It is worth noting that the zodiac is a Greek invention, and coincides in time with the growing power of the cult of Apollo in the 5th century BCE. Apollo and the astrology which we have inherited from the Greeks are deeply linked, and both reflect the same essential perception of an orderly cosmos. The orderly motion of the cosmos depends on Apollo as bearer of the purpose and intelligence of the divine light of the Sun, and it is his reasoning principle that keeps the planets in their courses. Here again we can gain a lot of insight into what function the Sun serves in the horoscope, for this centrality puts the individual at the centre of his or her life, and allows the other factors in birth chart to relate to each
Incuse square, within which a circle with a point in the centre (omphalos)
Temple of Apollo, front and one side visible; within, statue of Apollo naked, leaning on column. In pediment of temple, point in circle (omphalos)
hat does this role of light-bringer imply in terms of how we interpret the Sun in the horoscope? First of all it suggests that the symbol of Apollo describes some fundamental centrality within us - a core identity or sense of personal destiny which arises from consciousness of ourselves as individuals, and which has the power to dispel the compulsions which
Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum Arnoldo Forni Editore, Bologna, 1963
Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 7
Mosaic from the 3rd century CE, now at the Sentinum, Munich. The female figure represents the earth-goddess, of whom the omphalos is a symbol. Apollos hula-hoop is the ecliptic. Photo: E. Greene other in harmony. The orderly motion of the cosmos was understood as the Music of the Spheres, and here the god of music and the god as cosmocrator overlap and represent a fundamental pattern in life which is both orderly and beautiful. Every birth chart might be seen in this way, regardless of how many hard aspects or planets in detriment or fall one might find; and perhaps we might say that it is the ability to express the Sun which makes it possible to unlock harmonious possibilities, rather than the nature of planetary aspects themselves. In other words, a Mars-Saturn square or a Moon-Pluto opposition may generate conflict, but they are truly destructive only when there is no central core from which the individual can relate to and balance the needs of these planets. The Sun is the great reconciler of internal planetary conflicts, allowing them to work for rather than against life. Once again, a sense of self is the glue which binds the chart together and allows us to express and mediate it rather than be controlled by it. - and it is interesting to see just what the Greeks considered an art. Chief among the Muses was Calliope, the Muse of music, which is also one of the gifts of Apollo himself; hence the lyre with which he is often shown in ancient sculptures and frescoes. Urania is the Muse of astrology, or, to be more precise, of astrologia, which was the combination of astrology and what we would now call astronomy. From the perspective of this mythic backdrop astrology was not perceived as a science in the sense we would now use the term, but rather, as an art; and inspiration by the Muse was deemed necessary in order to tap its wisdom. The Muses were variously considered Apollos companions, lovers, or daughters; all three versions exist in myth. But it is clear that, whatever relationship they hold with him, they are expressions of his power to touch and inspire human beings through the creative imagination.
Apollo the artist
pollo is a culture-bringer who inspires human beings to creative expression through the agency of the Muses. This group of feminine figures each represents one of the arts
e should therefore not be surprised at the link between the astrological Sun and the field of human creative expression, represented by the 5th house of the horoscope. The god provides the inspiration, but his Muses embody him in accessible form and serve as bridges between the god and the human imagination. In Gustave Moreaus magnificent painting
Detail from The Muses Leaving Their Father Apollo to Go and Enlighten the World" by Gustave Moreau. It was painted in oil on canvas in 1868, and is now in the Muse national Gustave Moreau, Paris. Photo RMN - C. Jean
of Apollo and the Muses, the god is shown sending the Muses forth to educate and inspire humankind. (See opposite.) Apollos role is thus as educator, a word which comes from a Greek root meaning to lead forth. This is Platos idea of education - eliciting a response from the soul which reminds us of the higher spheres from which we have come. Art as education is rather different from art as entertainment, or art as political message. The solar dimension of artistic expression is a highly individual business, springing from deep within oneself and reflecting ones own special connection with the source of life. It is not a collective thing, although inspirational creative work may touch the feelings of the collective if one is sufficiently open to the larger psyche. But its source is not the collective; it is the individual Sun, the individual essence. The art of the astrological Sun may not necessarily be in a form recognisable as art; it may be embodied in the way one lives ones life. As a reflection of the role of consciousness in a persons life, this solar link with inspiration suggests that, wherever the Sun is placed in the chart, this is where we may experience a sense of connection with the divine through finding some vehicle or medium through which we can express that which is most inspiring to our own souls. Here we can see the connection between the Sun and vocation, whether that vocation is financially remunerative or something with which we are preoccupied alone in our private hours. It also suggests that everyone has a vocation in the deepest sense - even if it is not viable as a money-earning occupation in the world. But a sense of vocation cannot occur unless the individual is open to that inner inspiration, and willing to give loyalty to his or her individual values and vision.
Apollo the prophet

rophecy is not something we ordinarily associate with the Sun. We tend to think of prophecy in connection with psychism, although psychism is related to a blurring of individual boundaries and a capacity to enter into the larger life of the cosmos (or the life of another human being) and feel what is occurring there. Prophecy, as it was expressed through Apollos oracles, is something quite different. Apollos was called Double-Tongued because his oracles were so perplexing; but what they expressed was a basic scheme or design, which could be interpreted (and usually was) from a purely personal point of view. Then the oracle generally went wrong, and we have many myths describing situations where the hero or heroine tries to cheat the oracle, or interprets it wrongly with disastrous results. n other words, the message of the oracle was not psychic, but revealed in a flash the essential pattern underpinning the individuals
life, or highlighted the bare bones of a chapter in that life. We are really looking at what we mean by destiny, rather than fate in the compulsive sense, and in this respect Apollos prophecies are indeed related to the astrological Sun. When we glimpse an inner design or destiny, it gives our lives meaning and gives us something to live for; and we can get insight into that design if we look at the placement of the Sun in the birth chart by house, sign and aspect. Here is our future, the person we are potentially capable of becoming and deeply wish and need to become, if we are to feel our lives have some reason other than eating, reproducing, and dying. We may misinterpret the flash of meaning which the Sun gives, depending on our age, circumstances, and emotional needs and conflicts. But the core story of the individuals destiny is already known somewhere inside, and this is perhaps why the Sun is so closely connected with vocation, ones calling, or, as Howard Sasportas put it, a call from the inner Self. Prophecy as a glimpse of destiny, and destiny embodied in vocation, reflect one of Apollos most profound links with the astrological Sun. It is relevant that the oracle was given by the Pythoness; this suggests that we cannot directly hear the wisdom the Sun contains except through our feelings, bodies, and imagination. Without this mouthpiece Apollos knowledge is inaccessible. But unless we actively seek Apollos wisdom, the Pythoness is left with nothing to say. e can also see the relevance of astrology to Apollo, in the sense that as astrologers we seek to interpret the inherent pattern, the core story of the individuals life. The birth chart is a form of oracle, not in the fortune-telling sense - although this dimension of astrology has always been with us - but as a means of ascertaining the basic design which is our destiny. That this design is inner rather than outer is something which psychological astrology strives to emphasise, although life circumstances tend to reflect and embody the internal story. And like Apollos oracle, the configurations of the birth chart may be misinterpreted, by the astrologer as well as the client, because one lacks the perspective to view the whole picture and is focused on a special or immediate concern.
It is relevant that the oracle was given by the Pythoness; this suggests that we cannot directly hear the wisdom the Sun contains except through our feelings, bodies, and imagination.
Apollo the healer

pollos role as a physician-healer led to the rise of many Asclepions or healing centres throughout the ancient world. Asclepios was said to be the son of Apollo, a facet of the god incarnated in human flesh, and at all these healing shrines some monument or structure was always included linking Asclepios with his divine father. Although there are many mysteries surrounding just what kind of medicine was practised at these healing centres, we do know that music played an important part, as did the
inspiration and guidance of dreams. The astrological Sun is therefore an inner healer, and it may be important for us as astrologers to understand just what this might mean psychologically. ickness in terms of Apollo really means being cut off from the light of the Sun. The Greeks understood sickness to be psychic as well as physical, and the means of re-establishing harmony within the soul lay in music and dream-work - in other words, a relationship to what we would now call the unconscious. Today many of us tend to forget how profoundly music affects us, and how it can generate not only harmony but also disharmony. Music has become a political as much as a cultural issue these days, and we are in danger of losing sight of its educational and inspirational function. But music is the chief instrument of Apollo the healer, and music was understood to reflect the Music of the Spheres - the cosmic harmony. Thus sickness is a disharmony of the soul, a break in the human connection to the order of the larger cosmos; and healing is a restoration of inner harmony and a reconnection to the source. The will to live is deeply connected with the Sun in the horoscope, and the will to live arises from a sense of meaning; and this in turn arises from a feeling of being connected with something greater than oneself. The Sun gives us a feeling of being a vessel for something larger, something higher, and if we can put ourselves in harmony with it, we can find a meaning in life even if we experience tragedy and loss. Every physician knows that without the will to live, the ill patient will die, regardless of the efficacy of physical cures. In the ancient world the Sun was hyleg, the life-giver, and a loss of connection with the Sun meant a loss of the will to live. he harmony suggested by these ancient metaphors may not mean harmony in ones life in the ordinary sense; no birth chart is devoid of conflict and neither is any human life. But a sense of alignment is one of the gifts of expressing the Sun in the horoscope, and this alignment with a greater pattern - a feeling of individual destiny and purpose - may lie closer to what was understood as Apollos healing. The process of psychotherapy is an obvious arena today where the individual can reconnect with a sense of being what he or she is meant to be, freed from the pressures and expectations of family background and collective unconsciousness. The arts are perhaps another arena where this sense of reconnection can occur, provided they are kept free of politicising and not subsumed entirely in the gratifications of banal entertainment. But such a perspective is perhaps politically incorrect these days, for the word elitist is forever on the lips of those who do not wish to make the effort to find the inner connection which the Sun requires of us. To be an individual is to be alone and elite, as is the Sun-god himself.
When the Sun doesnt shine

epression, loss of the will to live, feeling dominated by inner compulsions, too great a dependency on others, identification with the collective resulting in a sense of not being real unless others are there to provide a mirror - all these experiences may result if we do not express the Sun in the horoscope. And expressing the Sun means making room in ones life for the values and needs of the Sunsign, involving oneself actively in the sphere of life represented by its natal house, and honouring the needs of the planets which aspect it. When we are cut off from the functions symbolised by the mythic Apollo, we experience passivity, powerlessness, meaninglessness, and loss of confidence. We need others to constantly affirm who we are, and we are frightened of having any individual feeling or opinion which might isolate us from the collective around us. No single planet in the birth chart is itself whole, and the Sun too may be overemphasised at the expense of instinctual needs and at the expense of others; Apollo is not the only god. But it is perhaps more common to meet individuals who have too little, rather than too much, Sun. As astrologers we need to ask ourselves why any individual should not be able to relate to the Sun in the horoscope. Practising astrologers have all met the client who displays nothing of the Sun, and cannot recognise any of the Sun-sign attributes in his or her temperament. Why should this be? number of factors may contribute to the inability or unwillingness to form a strong enough ego. First of these is the effect of the early environment, which, regardless of internal chart strengths, may, if it is destructive enough, succeed - for a time - in blanketing the Sun with a suffocating darkness so that it cannot shine. Systematic erosion of the childs sense of self may be part of this; parents who themselves cannot connect with Apollos light may resent seeing it in their children, and may do their best to convince the child that it is the family that matters, not the individual. Collective pressures may also contribute, especially in societies where individual expression is tantamount to a criminal act, as it was under the old Soviet Union regime. But it is questionable whether a destructive environment can wholly thwart the light of the Sun if the individual himself or herself is not somehow caught in an inner conflict. To understand this we need to look at the aspects to the Sun in the birth chart, and also at the way in which the Sun sits in the chart in relation to the balance of elements.
...expressing the Sun means making room in ones life for the values and needs of the Sun-sign, involving oneself actively in the sphere of life represented by its natal house, and honouring the needs of the planets which aspect it.
chart lacking in the element of fire may suggest that the individual finds it hard to trust the inspiration of the Sun, and may see himself or herself as uncreative or destined to serve those who are more
creative. This generates an inner conflict which may be helped by an honest look at over-dominant security needs or too great a dependency on what others think. A child with such a chart balance, born into a family which emphasises responsibility to others, may readily take on the role of caretaker, and may fear self-expression as an instrument of loneliness and alienation from the family. Hard aspects to the Sun from planets such as Saturn and Chiron may also reflect an inner conflict, a deep doubt in ones worth as an individual which makes it hard to trust solar light. The Sun may be blocked, or there may be a strenuous overcompensation which offers no real relief. Such aspects to the Sun may also reflect issues with the father, who may himself be wounded or unable to express an individual vision, or who may be too critical, indifferent or disinterested to provide encouragement for his childs developing sense of self. The Sun can indeed be expressed however difficult its aspects, but a compromise may be required between vision and the reality of ones personal limits. Hard aspects from the Sun to the outer planets may also suggest a deep conflict between ones openness to and allegiance to the collective, and ones need to shine as an individual. Such a conflict also requires a compromise - a vehicle through which one may express ones own values and identity and also serve the collective for which one is a kind of mouthpiece. Everything here depends on balance; or, as we are instructed by the inscription at Delphi, Nothing in excess. ouse placements may also reflect an inner conflict between individual selfexpression and collective factors; the Sun in the 8th, 11th, or 12th may suggest, like the Sun aspecting the outer planets, a deep openness to the collective psyche and a need to find a medium through which individual vision can be expressed as a contribution to the collective. The Sun in the 4th or 10th may reflect a powerful bond to one of the parents, which makes it hard for the Sun to convey the light of ones own self; rather, it is a vessel for the unlived life of the parent. There are many other ways in which inner conflict may be expressed in the chart, perhaps exacerbated by the early environment, which results in a loss of the Suns light. Then we have to work harder to find and express the light. It should not be thought that a well-aspected Sun in the sign of its dignity or exaltation means one has no difficulties in life; too much Sun may be too much of a good thing, and for those in whom Apollo is thriving, the loss of lunar contact may present a different but equally
painful kind of disconnection. But if we remember the symbol of the Sun-god as cosmocrator, loss of the Suns light is tantamount to loss of a sense of individual meaning, and no amount of lunar emotional fulfilment can compensate for this. We may find a reason to go on living even if we are alone. But if we have no reason to live, then we will try to live through others; and when they disappoint us or refuse to allow us to continue along this path, we may then have to cope with the loss of the will to live which, in ancient times, was healable only through the agency of Apollo.
The price to be paid

he mythology of Apollo also tells us the price to be paid if we are to develop the Sun and define ourselves as individuals. Apollo is a god who stands alone, unmarried and often rejected by lovers; and he has bad luck with his children, all of whom come to early violent ends. Orpheus is torn to pieces by Maenads; Asclepios is struck by Zeus thunderbolt; Phaton crashes the solar chariot and is consumed in flames. Although loved by gods and humans alike, Apollo has no family and establishes no dynasty. This imagery should not be taken literally, for expressing the Sun does not necessarily deny us a family or good relationships with other human beings. But if we choose to be individuals, we may have to sacrifice the luxury of living through other human beings, and especially living through our partners and children, who may strongly resist what they experience as domination. Thus Apollo is an image of something within us which is alone and selfcontained, and which can shine only if we are willing to detach sufficiently from others to affirm an individual centre and meaning. The price of enjoying the Suns light is a certain degree of aloneness, although this is rarely literal in the sense of having no actual companionship. But inwardly, one cannot ever entirely sink into that state of unconscious fusion which exists when the ego has never fully formed. Some conflict with family and collective may be inevitable. However, the ancient astrological association of the Sun with the heart and with love suggests that what we often call love may actually be a state of psychic fusion and dependency; and it may even be that we cannot truly love another individual as someone separate and worthy of respect if we are not separate individuals ourselves. pollo is of course only one of a family of gods, and the Sun is only one of a family of planets in the birth chart. We cannot be entirely alone, for we are part of a larger system and would be wise not to
Know Thyself!
Astrodienst and Astro* Intelligence say
Welcome to Apollon
Detail from a silver bowl from the 4th century CE, now at the Museo della civilt romana, Milan. H. G. Gundel Zodiakos, 1992 forget our antecedents and our participation in the collective in which we live and move and have our being. But it is not surprising that, even given the nature of the unhappiness which arises when the Sun does not shine, we still show reluctance to pay the price for its light. Fear of loneliness is the great enemy of solar light, and so is fear of envy, which is tantamount to the same thing; for others envy hurts deeply because we need others love and approval so much. If we are too unsure of ourselves to risk the disapproval of others, we cannot express the Sun sufficiently. If we are worried that others will resent us if we produce, or simply are, something special, then we must always ensure that we are ordinary, and may then attack and attempt to destroy others who dare to express solar light because we are eaten up by envy ourselves. This archetypal dilemma may be observed not only in myth but also in history, and in the questionable position of the artist in society. The artist is recognised as special and is usually glamorised, but often also attacked and even destroyed by the very people for whom he or she is the mouthpiece. This is not a political issue, but rather, an archetypal one, page 14 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 although it has taken political forms throughout the centuries. One example was Plato, that great adherent of Apollonian light, who was driven from Syracuse and nearly murdered when he attempted to restrict theatrical performances to those which educated rather than those which merely entertained. History as well as myth provides us with examples of how threatening solar light can be, and not only when it is itself overly dominant and expressed in tyrannical forms. For each individual, this archetypal conflict is relevant, for when we talk about individual creativity, we are really talking about the definition of an individual essence, different from that of everyone else, which has its own destiny and contribution to make to life. And because astrology itself is under the governance of Apollo, through his role as cosmocrator and also through his Muse Urania, we as astrologers may be called upon to take the role of the Sun when we interpret the chart for the client, shedding light on how the clients inner light may be encouraged, as well as making clear the reasons why it is not already shining, and the price to be paid if it does.
MIDHEAVEN BOOKSHOP
396 Caledonian Road London N1 1DN
Tel: 0171-607 4133 Fax: 0171-700 6717 Email: [email protected]
We are agents for Astro*Intelligence The worlds most advanced computer reports Reports by Liz Greene: Yearly Horoscope Analysis Relationship Horoscope and Childs Horoscope The Millennium and How it Affects You (available Dec 98) ******* All CPA Press titles available ******* Ask for our free catalogue: The Essential Guide To Astrological Literature *******
We represent a wide range of astrological software for Windows including
Electric Ephemeris Solar Fire V.4/Solar Maps/Jigsaw Astrocalc, WinStar, WOW (Synastry now available) Janus, plus Io Edition for the Mac
Creativity, Spontaneity, Independence:

Three Children of the Devil
In his book From the Wrong Side, renowned Jungian analyst Adolf Guggenbhl-Craig offers paradoxical views of established psychological truths. In the first chapter, reproduced here by kind permission of the author, he tackles a trinity of sacred cows, and introduces us to a new concept: Self-Effacing Therapy. Take a deep breath, this may hurt a little...
Adolf Guggenbhl-Craig is former president of both the C.G. Jung Institute, Zrich, and the International Association of Analytical Psychology. He is the author of several important and controversial books on psychological themes, including Eros on Crutches, Marriage Dead or Alive, and Power in the Helping Professions.
The creative, spontaneous and independent human being is the goal of education. Anonymous, 1985
n a current psychological periodical, I came across this advertisement. Course in I Psychology - five weekends. How can you become creative, spontaneous and independent? Attending this course will enable you to develop your creativity, win back your spontaneity and become psychologically independent. The advertisement angered me. The words creative, spontaneous and independent made my gall rise. I had often heard and read these three words in conjunction with psychology and apparently they touched a sore spot in me. I felt I had to get to the bottom of the matter for myself. become uncomfortable when people talk and write about a phenomenon so often and with such enthusiasm. The level of popularity leaves me with the impression that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. In the three concepts, creativity, spontaneity and independence, I imagined I sniffed something pathological. For this reason I will take a closer look at them in the following discussion.
since I have the impression that I am not creative enough to do so. I will say that we find creativity in the most widely differing activities of human beings; in art, in science, in technology, in psychology and so forth. There are apparently many kinds of creativity, but scarcely one satisfying definition. rior to the Renaissance, creativity as a concept, as an idea, as something of great import for the individual did not exist. Only in the sixteenth century did the notion of the genius in the sense of the creative man appear in Italy. Such a genius was understood to be an artist or engineer, someone who worked independently, who did not depend on the authority of antiquity. By the seventeenth century, the word genius had become an integral part of the Italian language in our present-day meaning of someone who is creative. English, French and German then adopted the word in the eighteenth century when Cesare Lombroso, the famous Italian criminologist, wrote his well-known book, The Man of Genius. In this work, Lombroso portrayed genius as the essence of the creative man.
Creativity
et us first turn to creativity. What is creative? The majority of what we call scientific defL initions of creativity are anything but creative. Here are several examples from psychology textbooks: Creativity can be defined quite simply as the ability to bring something new into being. This definition is a tautology: creativity is creativity. An idea is accepted as creative in the social system when it contains new or novel elements in a particular situation and when a meaningful contribution to problem resolution is seen. This is somewhat more complex, but does not take us very much further. Creativity is the ability to operate not merely from one perspective, but to consider and test out a variety of possibilities. This is certainly correct, but no deeper dimensions open up for us here. Finally, I would like to quote Erich Fromm: Creativity means to become more aware and to react or, the readiness to be born new each day. Fromms definition has the advantage that it uses an image, rebirth, but it is so general that it, too, is not much help for us. bove all, I became uncomfortable with the mere term creativity, believing therein to have smelled hidden psychopathology. In this regard, the above definitions were not much comfort. They failed to explain my unusual vexation. I will refrain from defining creativity, itself,
oday genius has lost something of its attraction; we speak of creativity instead. In T our age it is almost a must to be creative. It is expected of us psychotherapists that we help our patients become creative. Everyone is supposed to develop his creativity, goes the thinking. The course I mentioned earlier is an example of how psychotherapists expect to help everyone become creative. e should at least ask once and honestly, Is everyone truly creative or at least potentially creative? Certainly a great number of people are capable of very nice drawings and paintings. We encourage patients, for instance, to express themselves in so-called artistic ways. Their creations carry great significance for these patients and their therapist, represent spiritual life and promote psychic development. If, however, we were being unprejudiced, we would have to admit that such drawings, paintings and sculptures of patients are, as a rule, very collective and totally lacking originality. They contain no message for the general public, in no way do they have universal value and they offer nothing new. eversing positions, let us consider the psychological ideas of the majority of us psychologists and psychiatrists. By and large, our ideas are completely unoriginal and collective! We can hardly recognise any kind of creativity and even less something truly new in them. In form and content, these ideas are but repetitions or simply plain hard work. They are not genuinely creative, something very rare.
hat about childrens drawings? Childrens W paintings and drawings are touching, often even profound, moving the hearts of parents, surprising our friends and interesting therapists. When hung on the wall, however, usually they soon become boring. In my neighbourhood, children spontaneously and on their own painted the walls of an underpass. They were likewise permitted to decorate some of the walls of their school. We were all enthusiastic and delighted, but after only six months these works of art had become increasingly tiresome until the adults wished that they would simply disappear. e project so much onto children and onto what they produce. We project the divine child, an archetype which carries newness, freshness, hope and future. Child possesses qualities of being alive, not-yet-repressed and blossoming. In the primitivity and awkwardness of childrens drawings, we believe we find our own lack of originality and freshness. As we withdraw these projections over time, what remains are only somewhat tiresome drawings, paintings or sculptures. hat really characterizes a truly creative human being? What is unique about an artist, for example, an innovative scientist, a ground-breaking psychologist or someone who otherwise is a genius in the sense of the Renaissance? How is such an individual different from the average citizen? The formers work, ideas, or insights have importance not only for himself or his family and friends, but are new and stimulating for a larger circle of humanity. This significance does not always manifest itself immediately and seldom goes uncontested, but is at least the goal of the activity. any creative individuals, artists especially, suffer from the delusion that they work only for themselves and in no way for the public at large. Yet, when this same public fails to value their work, artists often succumb to despair. When the artist does not experience it consciously, but represses the despair, it reappears in his dreams. To show his work is vital for the artist, the sine qua non of his existence, wrote the French painter, Edouard Manet. To be appreciated by the public is an existential question for an artist. If a work of art never interests someone else, then perhaps it is because it is not art at all, but only the individual expression of the artist. Lacking any new message for general humanity, art may be purely personal. An artist wants to express more than the personal, to do more than depict only himself or heal more than himself. he greatness of creative work appears to bear no real relationship to the individual personality and character of the creative human being. I have read many fascinating novels, seen various wonderful paintings, old as well as modern and marvelled at numerous original ideas. When I subsequently have had the good fortune to personally meet and sometimes get to know the artist, author or scientist, I have usually been sorely disappointed. I have come to realize that the greatness of the work seems in no way to correlate with any kind of greatness of soul in the creator. I often, therefore, resolve not to spoil my pleasure or my admiration for the work, itself, by personal meetings with the originator. ue to the play and the film, Amadeus, Mozart has recently received renewed
From the Wrong Side a paradoxical approach to psychology
Adolf Guggenbhl-Craig Translated by Gary V. Hartman Spring Publications, Inc. Woodstock, Connecticut, USA ISBN 0-88214-357-3
popular attention. It is difficult for me to explain psychologically how this curious man could have created such divine music. Although his personality, life history and his being certainly influenced his music in many ways, his personality does not explain the godliness of his music. s this discrepancy between person and work really so astonishing? I believe it is only astonishing if we view creativity as something personal. I would like to postulate the following: the actual, meaningful character of a creative individuals work has little to do with that individuals personal psyche. To be sure, an authors mother complex, for example, will show itself in his novels. Life history, forefathers and family background all influence the themes and styles of poets and writers. Character and psychopathology find equal expression in the creations of novelists as well as patients. To the extent, however, that a creation touches others, touches the general public, it is much more than just the expression of a single person and his problems. It seems almost as though the genius, the creative individual, be he artist, author, or scientist, whoever creates in a nonpersonal way, is not himself, creative.* One must be able to say that this or that painting is the way it is in its power, because it is touched by God, said Pablo Picasso. either consciousness nor unconsciousness, neither the creative individual nor the genius are themselves creatively active. It is creative, whatever this it may be, for creativity happens outside of the individual psyche. A highly gifted author of psychological books expressed it this way: When I write, it seems to me that my fingers write on their own and not I, myself. My fingers play with the typewriter like autonomous beings. Phenomenologically, at least, it seems that a power external to the one creating is at work, that the creator is but a tool or vessel. How do I arrive at this hypothesis? First, my hypothesis is based on my experience with artists and creative individuals from a variety of fields, as I have already mentioned. My hypothesis also finds support in the word gifted. Gifted means nothing less than that we possess something not part of ourselves, a gift,
The greatness of creative work appears to bear no real relationship to the individual personality and character of the creative human being.
*Parenthetically, when I speak of the artist, author and so forth, I intend, as a matter of course, to include female artists and authors. Since I belong to the older generation, the masculine figures of speech carry, on one hand, the quality of maleness and, on the other, have universal signifcance, including both women and men.
Transcendent creativity is in no way a blessing for the vessel but more likely a curse.
Elvis Aaron Presley 8 January 1935, 4:00 (CST) Tupelo Mississippi (Birth Certificate)
something that is given to us. The suprapersonal aspect of creativity finds further expression in the phrase kissed by the Muses. Something other, the Muses, gifts or kisses the poet. believe that creativity is always impersonal, always transcends the personal. We should, therefore, speak of transcendent creativity. The individual person is but an instrument having little or nothing to do with the creation. By the way, Freud says something similar. Freud emphasizes when speaking of the artist that he cannot say what determines an artist or what art is. He is only capable of writing about that which an artist expresses as a human being and how this shines through in a work of art. What art is, itself, Freud claims not to know. must immediately interject the following: Transcendent creativity is in no way a blessing for the vessel but more likely a curse. The message must be delivered, the work must be given form, even when the vessel or the tool breaks in the process. Such human beings must be creative, even when this means nothing other than to suffer. Yes, often the personality of the one in question is destroyed. The vessel is too small, the tool too weak. I am reminded of the tragic but highly popular example of Elvis Presley. He expressed something demonic/godly and he, himself, foundered on it. Alfred J. Ziegler, the noted Zrich psychiatrist and author, brought to my attention that in German the word Kunst (art) is as much related to kuenden (to announce) as to koennen (to be able). Perhaps we could say that the artists ability lies in his capability to give voice, to announce, something beyond himself, something transcendent. That was certainly the power of Presleys voice! These are a few of my thoughts on the transcendent power of what we call creativity. s I already mentioned, the concept of creativity carries another meaning and it would be remiss of me to simply leave this other usage by the wayside. I have mentioned the works of patients who express their purely personal problems in drawings, painting and the like. Not only do patients take delight in such activity, but many people sing, for instance and make music for the pleasure of their family and friends ( or to their distress). Unendingly, much of what is termed creativity occurs everywhere human beings are found. Much of it is touching and it moves us in cases of people with whom we have some connection. The works themselves, though, have no further general significance. would like to designate all this activity, personal creativity, in contrast to transcendent creativity. Personal creativity is abundant, can be found everywhere and is possible for everyone. All of us are, in the final analysis, something and have, therefore, something to express. We also speak of creativity in this personal sense; we apply the same word even though it is something completely different from transcendent creativity. Indeed, we should not refer to personal creativity as creativity at all. We might, for instance, speak of self-development, selfexpression or something similar. In such cases, what we are referring to already exists and is neither something truly new nor something of wider significance. Despite the psychological importance of personal creativity, I dislike the fact that it tries to appropriate to itself the prestige and honour of transcendent creativity. Personal creativity has far less to do with suf-
fering and with compulsion and produces nothing that goes beyond the purely personal. e observe yet a third form of creativity which I would like to mention. We meet it often in those engaged in the fashion and advertising industry. Individuals with this variety of creativity are capable of conceiving designs which subsequently meet with great success in fashion sales. They possess, in other words, the ability to sense precisely what will come. It is not necessarily true that in fashion the great designers are the leaders in taste. Much more they possess an almost mediumistic gift of detecting what is playing itself out and forming in the soul of the collective. They recognise, for example, what kind of design and so forth will be in demand in the coming months and years. ertainly there exist individuals among fashion designers with transcendent creativity. Often, however, they represent a form of creativity that I would like to designate collective creativity. This form does not truly create, but senses in advance what is taking place in the collective unconscious and makes use of it. From a negative perspective, we could characterize this type of creativity hysterical. We find it frequently among writers or psychological authors, among individuals who foresee which ideas are on the ascendant and write about them. They have a nose for the collective trends and sniff out what the fashion will be. e must, therefore, differentiate between transcendent creativity first, personal creativity second and collective creativity third. The term is the same with all three and yet represents three completely different things which, unfortunately, get confused constantly. Creativity enjoys a great deal of prestige, a prestige that properly belongs only to transcendent creativity. The other two forms are usurpers, so to speak, of the reputation of transcendent creativity. I can perhaps illuminate the standing of transcendent creativity with an image. By transcendent I mean, as I mentioned, something that comes through, shines through from another world. We could say that something of the Creator, something of God shines through. When we use this image, it is not out of place to assume that transcendent creativity brings us into connection with the divine and therefore justifies the high esteem it enjoys. The applause, the recognition of the creative does not belong - I wish to emphasize - to the vessel, but to the message the vessel conveys. any of us, though, have become personal to such an extent that we admire the vessel, the genius, the artist or the creative individual. We go so far as to assume the creative individual has something to tell us outside the area of his particular giftedness. Further, we believe that in order to understand his work, it is important to understand his personality. Art history, for instance, has tried repeatedly to connect the artists personality with his art. In 1986, at the London School for Medical History, students were to write about the following topic: Explain the relation between Freuds character and his psychological theories. In my opinion, the topic should have read the other way around, namely, How did Freuds character deform the beauty, the originality of his psychological vision? The question is not how Michelangelos personality influenced his art, but how it interfered with it! The
taste of the wine can be tainted by the container - wine in a plastic cup never tastes as good as wine in a glass. We can, however, never explain the taste of wine by the container alone. e have gotten side-tracked a little here. Applying the same word, creativity, to three completely different things, namely transcendent, personal and collective creativity, leads to a mix-up and a confusion of values. Transcendent creativity occurs rarely - most people do not possess a trace of it. As a rule, they are neither truly artistic, nor original, nor do they have any new ideas. We only copy, assimilate, adopt. We apply what other, original, creative individuals before us have made and created. As a rule, we are creatures and not creators. When I say, we, I also mean we analysts. We view ourselves as having to use the ideas of others as precisely as possible since we are barely capable of developing any ourselves. he confusion in the area of creativity is great. All of us long to transcend our mortal bounds. Since transcendent creativity offers the possibility of this experience, we revere it, look for it everywhere and demand it from everyone. Then we confuse messenger with message, seeing the former as more important than the latter. We search for something in the wrong place and end up worshipping idols. The result of this confusion is often detrimental to our psychological development. xpecting everyone to be (transcendentally) creative is like expecting everyone to be an Old Testament prophet or the founder of a religion instead of simply followers of some established religion or religious form. Individuals who modestly move within one of the existing religious communities with no claim to originality succumb less to the great, sectarian movements of political and religious nature which always draws in countless others. Religion is a personal affair to be certain, but new religious forms and images are given to but a few. ndividuals who confuse their purely personal creativity- read, self-development, self-expression - with actual transcendent creativity, become addicted to an illusion and overvalue themselves beyond measure. Generally, they are far from any religiosity but very near to a miserable self-cult. Analysis and psychotherapy understood wrongly can wreak great havoc here. Many upstanding, decent and simple people have discovered their so-called creativity in analysis - and begin to flood their environment, their room, their house - with the questionable products of their personal creation. They waste their time and have none left for reflection and, in particular, none for other relationships. am reminded of a woman who arranged marvellous social gatherings. The combination of the guests was, as a rule, stimulating and the culinary delights were outstanding. Through analysis she became creative, expended a great deal of time giving expression to her soul in clumsy drawings and paintings and for years arranged no more gatherings.
tain whether all of our drives or archetypal forces always possess within themselves this checking action. With hunger, for example, this does not necessarily seem to be the case, otherwise there would not be so many individuals with eating disturbances. e often complain about the lack of spontaneity and would like so much for love, especially, to express itself spontaneously more often. Ama fac quod vis, - love and you can do what you will. Unfortunately, love rules us but seldom. In the absence of Eros we are grateful for moral or other inhibitions and restrictions on our spontaneity. When love is not with us and such is often the case, then it is certainly useful for the dryness of morality to limit our spontaneity. f we were truly spontaneous, we would give expression to all our negative impulses as well and often even resort to violence. Social life would hardly be possible under the rule of spontaneity. I could just kill him, would then be more than a figure of speech. Furthermore, many men would sexually molest women continuously - and, naturally, the other way around as well. Infants crying in the night would be literally strangled should spontaneity truly rule. There would be no end to the horror. Of course, I am being simplistic with these possibilities. I wish only to note that, in spite of such scenarios, we consider complete spontaneity desirable. f the three children of the Devil, spontaneity is certainly the most appealing, the attribute we would least wish to be without. With no spontaneity, where would be the beau geste, where the innocent expression of tenderness and so forth. I will have more to say about spontaneity later. o repeat what I said in the introduction what the quotation at the beginning of this chapter says is just as true as my statements this is the paradox of psychology. Psychological statements are especially valid when the opposite is also true. Someone else could sing the praises of these children - creativity, spontaneity and independence - just as easily as I characterize them as offspring of the Devil!
Explain the relation between Freuds character and his psychological theories. In my opinion, the topic should have read the other way around, namely, How did Freuds character deform the beauty, the originality of his psychological vision?
O T
Spontaneity will turn now to spontaneity. Our psychic life distinguishes itself by a changeable balance of different drives and archetypal forces which succeed in mutually balancing and holding each other in check or not. I am not completely cer-
Independence et us now turn to independence, the third of our devilish trio. Psychological laymen and experts alike preach the importance of becoming independent - independent of mother, father, children, women, men, the collective, society and so forth. Is it not possible that our prized independence bears many similarities to a paranoid delusional system? What, exactly, is supposed to become independent - the ego? But the ego depends on the energy of the unconscious. And what is in this unconscious the archetypes? Even the archetypes are not sole rulers, depending as they do on they do on each other. Too, without the ego, archetypes could eventually get completely out of hand. hould our destructiveness become independent, we could easily degenerate into muggers and murderers - think of the excesses of Nazi war criminals, Stalins purges or the cultural revolution in China. Should the archetype of the dragon-slayer manifest its autonomy, we would alternate between the wildness of crusaders and cultic fanatics.
ince we are constantly connected with all of S humanity through our collective unconscious, how can we possibly be independent? We all live in a complicated internal and external network of dependencies. Parents are continuously dependent on their children: the fate of their offspring influences fathers and mothers throughout their lives. Only parents devoid of feeling can say, My daughter is now a thirtyyear old woman. What she does, what happens to her no longer concerns me. I am completely free of her - independent. Children depend on their parents even after their parents death. Over and over I experience the post mortem coming to terms with parents, the Auseinandersetzung,* not just as release, but also as the living out of fundamental connection. Neurotic seventy-year-olds are not the only people who call attention to themselves by how much they talk about their parents. arriage partners, too, not only love one another. They depend on each other in the depth of their beings (at least as long as the marriage lasts) and constantly influence each other, often after divorce! While now and then material dependency increases with age, it usually decreases. By contrast, though, marriage partners are dependent their life long on the dynamics of the others psyche. s I mentioned, our psyche lives in a network of internal and external dependencies. Instead of struggling against our dependencies, would it not be wiser to reflect on them and to attempt to locate and develop our soul within them? We would further our psychological development more by realizing that psychic life is dependence and that, therefore, we would do well to shape and form our dependence. ot all eras and cultures have been so enthusiastic about independence. A Japanese psychiatrist explained to me that amai, the Japanese word for human connection, can best be translated as loving dependence. This emphasis on dependence in relationship has specific consequences. We in the West would say to a guest, If you are hungry, just go to the refrigerator and help yourself. We would like to encourage him to feel at home in our kitchen. Apparently, this way of doing things would be confusing if not insulting to a guest in Japan. There the guest is honoured when his host hands him a dish of vanilla ice cream with the request to Please eat. A guest would never serve or help himself, rather he is dependent in his choices. While in Europe it might be more polite to ask, Would you care for tea or coffee, in Japan one would say You would certainly like a cup of coffee. A host decides for his guest and the latter recognizes the freedom of this dependency. In the West, couples in love are among the few to happily admit their mutual and complete dependency on their beloved with statements such as I cant live without you, and the like.
*grappling with, coming to terms with
God Complex o recapitulate, I have tried to show that various forms of creativity exist, among which only one deserves to be called creative, namely transcendent creativity. To possess this form of creativity is as difficult for its bearer as its occurrence is rare. The other forms of creativity, personal and collective, profit from the prestige which transcendent creativity
enjoys. When, however, we confuse the other forms with true creativity, we experience a damaging delusion of grandeur as a result. have further established that spontaneity and independence are of but doubtful psychological value. At the same time we cannot simply devalue something that currently is so esteemed. If thousands of psychotherapists, judges, ministers, teachers, professors, philosophers and so forth assert that modern man should be creative, spontaneous and independent, then we must be able to find something desirable in these three psychological phenomena. Let us examine our trinity from a mythological and archetypal standpoint. Can we not discern some kind of myth concealed here? Could we even discover behind this triad an archetypal psychopathology? he word creativity comes from the Latin creare, to create. We name God our Maker, the Creator, and human beings we name creatures. To be creative is an attribute of Gods: God created heaven and earth, created us and all living beings. He is, therefore, creative - yes, only God is truly creative. Based on this perception, Protestant circles of the 19th Century rejected the usage of the word creative in conjunction with human activities. They viewed the usage as sinful, prideful and arrogant. want to mention something else concerning the anti-creative tradition. In the oldest synagogues of the Middle East there was often a cathedra, a chair, which stood in readiness for Moses and upon which no one ever sat. Moses was very close to God and through Moses, God created the Jewish Law. No one besides Moses was able to be creative, a tradition which found the following expression. Until the late 19th Century, orthodox rabbis went to the greatest lengths never to be original. If any of them had an original idea, he had to conceal it behind endless citations from the Talmud. In no way might he give the impression that he felt himself in the least to be original or creative. We are dealing, therefore, with two traditions. On the one hand, creativity is admired. On the other, it is regarded as an exclusive attribute of God and any human claims to it can only be seen as hubris. ven so, creativity brings us face to face with God. Can we say the same thing for independence? We can certainly assume that the only truly independent being in the world is God. By definition, God is independent from everything and everything is dependent on Him. He is beginning and end, Alpha and Omega of creation. Whether Christian, Jewish or Islamic, God is totally independent. In addition, only God can be completely spontaneous with no fear of punishment. His spontaneity is most troublesome for us: God does not have to justify Himself to anyone. His moods, though, influence the course of the world. In his anger He sent the Flood. After the Flood, regretting what He had done, He promised never again to destroy humanity. Should He ever again become angry, however, nothing can stop His sweeping mankind away with, for example, an atomic catastrophe. We cannot reason with God. s you know, C.G. Jung suggested another conception of God, a God who is also
dependent upon us, that is, not totally independent nor completely spontaneous. Jungs notion of God has not prevailed - perhaps, not yet? We struggle today with the Christian, Islamic, Judaic concept, the concept of a God creative, spontaneous and totally independent. Seen from the perspective of the collective religious currents, the Christian God has in recent times lost significance and influence, at least in Europe. In the 19th Century, for instance, every passenger on an Atlantic crossing prayed regularly every morning. This sort of religiosity is hardly imaginable today. Do we moderns not simply put ourselves in the place of God? Do we not believe that we are like God? Instead of worshipping the creative, independent and spontaneous God, we seem to view ourselves as creative, independent and spontaneous, at least potentially. Here we are on the trail of a pathology, the trail of a God complex or of an identification with God. must elaborate on something at this point. It is to Jungs credit historically that he clearly differentiated between ego and Self. Unfortunately, many psychological authors in adopting the concept of the Self, albeit without crediting Jung, have caused confusion. The ego deals with the ordering of the interior world and with coordinating our relationship to the environment. The Self is the centre of the psyche, the vehicle by which we experience meaning. We could say it is the divine spark in us, that which brings us into relationship with God in our psyches. Some psychologists are of the opinion that God is nothing other than a projection of the Self outside ourselves. I am not so certain. God is significantly more than a projection of some psychic force or energy. What we do project is our longing for oneness with God. e partially project the desire for oneness backwards, regressively, as represented by the myth of the paradise in which Adam and Eve lived and from which they were expelled. We often misread the myth, however. We assume it refers to a kind of memory of our earliest childhood when the world was still undivided. I believe the notion that in earliest childhood we were one with our mother and through her with the world, what Margaret Mahler calls "symbiosis," is as much a myth as the one of paradise. The Garden of Eden is a religious myth; the idea of infant oneness is the corresponding psychological myth. suspect that life is extremely difficult for us all from the very beginning. Hardships begin in our mother's womb. In the fetal stage we are exposed to all kinds of hormonal and emotional storms through our mother, storms which we do not understand and which we can do nothing about. As soon as we catch sight of the light of the world, we are further exposed to cold, heat, hunger and other unpleasant sensations. Not only can we not grasp these sensations, but we have to deal with the ambivalent feelings from human beings around us including our mother. Paradise in childhood, oneness with mother, as I have said, is nothing but the concretized, misunderstood mythology of paradise. e also project our longing for oneness with God into the future, onto the kingdom to come, the heavenly mansion of many rooms. At the end of days, evil and suffering will be conquered and death will have lost its sting.
This future projection promises complete bliss. Our yearning for utopia is another form of the projection of oneness into the future, one which Communist leaders, among others, have made use of. Their message is: "Things are bad now, but soon we will have paradise on earth." he two mythologies, paradise lost and the kingdom to come, express exactly what they describe. We mortal beings are never truly united with God. We long for union and either believe we have experienced it in the past or hope we will find it in the future. Perhaps, there actually was a reality of union when the world began, and perhaps we will experience it in our present incarnated existence. What we do experience is nothing less than a state of being cut off from God. Much human, existential suffering comes from this separation, just as much longing comes from the hope of release from the separation. his suffering and this longing can lead to an archetypal kind of pathology. We attempt to resolve the separation from God by becoming like God; we wish to be God. At the same time we realize the discrepancy. We realize that we are not God, that the Tower of Babel was not completed and that Heaven has not been taken by storm. In many stories the Devil promises to fulfill all of our wishes when we pay his price. The Devil, though, is a part of God, the shadow of God. So in reality, God's shadow awakens in us the wish to be like God. (I get into difficulties here mythologically and start to become confused.) When educators, ministers and therapists of all kinds, all of us, encourage creativity, spontaneity and independence, all attributes of God, they are taking the Devil's side. They are encouraging us to become God, speaking imaginatively. They appeal to the God complex, working in conjunction, to stay with the image, with Satan, with God's shadow. Patients should, therefore, give special attention to a therapist's shoes: there may be a cloven hoof in them! efore I continue on the subject of the God complex, I want to do something odd, something that corresponds to the mythology of the Devil but not completely with the logic of my argument. I want to play advocatus diaboli for a moment. The God complex is so wonderful and fascinating that we are loath to do without it. It gives us a powerful feeling of being uplifted, of being important, at least for a time. once knew a flute teacher who, for years, gave lessons to students with varying degrees of talent. She suffered from sleep disturbance and finally went into analysis. Her analyst encouraged her, or her dreams encouraged her, to give concerts. She was completely untalented as a soloist, but her concertizing made her unbelievably happy. After the performances she felt like she was walking on air and she looked radiant. Her sleep disturbance disappeared for a while. Even her audiences, consisting mostly of friends and relatives, were deeply impressed, not by the music, but by the fact that the concerts appeared to completely transform the woman. Without this passing phase of inflation, the woman would perhaps have remained stuck in her sleep disturbance; the Devil had at least gotten things moving. Of course, there was also a price to pay. The woman began to direct her aggression toward her family and her
Patients should, therefore, give special attention to a therapist's shoes: there may be a cloven hoof in them!
Self-effacing therapy would free us, would make us happy and content not to be creative
ability to reflect diminished. She became extremely tiresome for those around her. I mention this story as an aside and will now return to the God complex and its further discussion. uring the 18th and 19th Centuries, the educated public greatly occupied itself with so-called insane asylums. Laymen had a very definite conception of the inmates of these public institutions. They imagined that one patient believed himself to be Napoleon, another to be Caesar or Alexander the Great and yet another the King of Kings or Emperor of the Universe or even God, Himself. All of these figures, Napoleon, Caesar, Alexander and so forth, are men who suffered from a God complex, who identified with God or a god either openly or in secret, who believed themselves a divine incarnation. I find it psychologically meaningful that these psychotics so occupied the interest of people living in the last two centuries. Their interest progressed to the point that they believed the majority of inmates suffered from delusions of grandeur and identification with God. The actual number of psychotics with this diagnosis was not so large. People apparently assumed the essence of psychosis, the core of madness, to be the belief that one was God or at least similar to God. The height of madness found its utterance in the God complex, a fundamental psychopathology.
onsciously or unconsciously, all human beings wish to come closer to God. This is an archetypal truth. C Wishing to be God or believing I am God is probably an archetypal psychopathology. As I have shown, the notion that creativity, independence and spontaneity should be the goal of psychological development is tied to the God complex. But perhaps I am being too gentle. The collective idea that everyone should be or become creative, independent and spontaneous as much as possible is a mental disorder. Such a goal is hubris and hubris for the ancient Greeks who coined the term, was extremely dangerous. It led to random acts of violence due to the identification with the deity and was always punished severely. e need to ask why the God complex-through the reverence for our unholy trinity - plays such W an important role today. That psychotherapists of all kinds promote this reverence is not particularly unusual. We are to some extent but priests of the collective spirit, preaching and mediating general thinking and collective psychopathology. Let me pose the question again: Why does the God complex have so much collective significance at this moment in time? I must assume that it has always been significant given the kings, emperors, pharaohs and rajahs who insisted on their divinity (Louis XlV of France, the roi soleil comes to mind). With the spread of democracy, the God complex, too, experienced a "democratization." The God complex currently hides behind the idea that every individual should or could be creative, spontaneous and independent.
Self-effacing Therapy
ll this compels me to plead the cause of Self-Effacing Therapy, of self-effacing analyA sis and self-effacing psychology. I am opposed to any therapy and any psychology that has succumbed to or lapsed into the God complex. Since neither we therapists nor our clients are geniuses, the "effacing" part of this approach should not be terribly difficult. In fact, so few of us on either side fall into the genius category that it is not worth mentioning from a psychotherapeutic perspective. I offer an example of someone who was pushed into a creative
role, of someone who, in short, did not undergo self-effacing therapy. he analysand I have in mind was a thirtyyear old, somewhat depressive man. His mother had always told him he was a genius and his wife had carried on this mythology. In his analysis he freed himself from his mother's fantasy but his analyst assumed the fantasy, thereby thrusting the unfortunate into "creativity." Since he possessed a certain writing ability he wrote his dreams quite well - he began to devote himself to general writing and contented himself for years in passing his time with worthless scribbling. In so doing, the real joys and sorrows of his life passed him by. elf-effacing therapy would free us, would make us happy and content not to be creative, to be free from transcendent creativity. It would make us content to value what most of us are, namely, not creative. It would help us to thankfully appreciate the fruit of the work of genuinely creative individuals without, ourselves, having to suffer from our talent or perishing from it. What I call personal creativity can develop successfully without false aspirations. Self-effacing therapy recognizes, for example, that only one in a billion will be the founder of a new religion. None of us, therefore, should succumb to pressure to find our completely personal religion, but rather to modestly align ourselves with one of the established religions. urthermore, self-effacing therapy means taking on dependence. It means realizing that we are only small cogs in a giant mechanism, that everything and everyone depend upon everything and everyone - father, mother, children, husband, wife, friends, society, culture and so forth. We can live out this dependence in happiness and contentment. How much does our continual pushing and shoving toward Godlike independence block valuable psychological development? Psyche shows itself in dependence. I do not, therefore, consider it necessarily good when a patient's medical history states, "The patient succeeded in freeing himself from his dependence upon his mother. Currently, he only sees his mother about four times a year, whereas earlier he talked to her on the telephone every week and visited her twice a month." I think it would be better if the chart stated instead, "The patient is very much bound to his mother by innumerable ties that go back and forth between him and her. The patient is aware of the many contradictory feelings in this relationship. He hates and loves his mother in a much more differentiated way. inally, self-effacing therapy could result in our mistrusting spontaneity somewhat more than we do. elf-effacing therapy would mean that as clients, patients and analysands - and as therapists - we recognize how non-creative, how lacking in spontaneity and how dependent we are. We would recognize that it is not necessary to take these expectations upon ourselves and thus be driven into a desperate inflation. Self-effacing therapy invites us to live as most of us truly are and not to have to measure ourselves with the yardstick of individuals who are cursed with a talent or a gift. Individuals with genius are transcendentally creative and to that degree independent and spontaneous. They are only vessels, only tools for the creative,
F S
spontaneous and independent message. They pay and suffer fearfully for the message, a problem particular only to them. For the rest of us, the problem is to suffer the way we are and not to demand of ourselves that we be unique vessels, creative and equal to God. elf-effacing therapy helps us to accept our condition as it is and, naturally, to value and take pleasure from genius where it appears. It helps us also to be glad that we are hardly ever vessels of otherworldly messages and therefore suffer less. We should be thankful for our lack of creativity, spontaneity and independence and, at the same time, appreciate the fascinating offerings of creative individuals. Here is an example of what I am talking about. I knew a man of about fifty years of age who had a certain amount of acting ability. Never did he consider becoming an actor, himself. In his free time, however, he worked as a volunteer stage hand for a small theater group where his presence always encouraged the actors. He recognized that he was not blessed and cursed with
talent. At the same time, he could participate in and enjoy the theater in a way that was satisfying to him. This is what I mean about humbly being what we are. nsofar as we clients, patients or therapists content ourselves to live with our human nature and not to deviate into the God complex or the Self complex - and here is the paradox - we probably come closer to the Self and the divine spark in ourselves. Insofar as we recognize our human limitations, we certainly come much closer to God than when we succumb to the God complex in its triune expression of creativity, spontaneity and independence. othing that I have said in the foregoing pages is in any way new nor is it at all creative. Perhaps in this chapter I have strayed too far into the no-man's-land between religion and psychology - something of course that is difficult to avoid in psychology.
The collective idea that everyone should be or become creative, independent and spontaneous as much as possible is a mental disorder.
Samuel Weiser, Inc.

Our new titles are in!
Ancient Egyptian Divination and Magic by Eleanor L. Harris Astrological Moon by Haydn Paul Basic Yoga for Everybody deck and book pack by Gertrud Hirschi Transforming Dragons deck and book pack by Snia Caf New paperback editions are also available! Commentaries on the Holy Books & Other Papers (Equinox Vol. 4 No. 1) Golden Dawn Scrapbook Rosicrucians
Our 1998 catalog is now available, listing all recent publications, forthcoming titles, and our entire backlist. Send us your mailing address for our FREE catalog.
See our web site at http://www.weiserbooks.com

Samuel Weiser, Inc. Box 612, York Beach ME 03910-0612, U.S.A. Phone: +1 207 363 4393 Order Line (Within the US only): 1 800 423 7087 Fax: +1 207 363 5799 E-mail for questions regarding ordering and catalog requests: [email protected]
The Sun in the Tarot and the Horoscope

In The Mythic Tarot, the Major Arcana card of the Sun is represented by Apollo. Here, Juliet Sharman-Burke, co-author of the book, takes a brief look at the symbolism of the Sun god.
Juliet Sharman-Burke has been practising astrology and Tarot for the past twenty years. She has been teaching and supervising for the Centre for Psychological Astrology since its inception in June 1983, and also runs the Centre's administration. She is also a qualified analytic psychotherapist with a private practice in London. Juliet is the author of The Complete Book of Tarot, The Mythic Tarot Workbook, and Understanding Tarot, and is co-author of The Mythic Tarot with Liz Greene. She has also written The Barefoot Book of Stories from the Stars, a book for children. The Astrologer, the Counsellor and the Priest, with Liz Greene, and The Family Inheritance: Parental Images in the Horoscope, have both been published by the CPA Press.
T
The Sun card in the Mythic Tarot
strology and Tarot are both disciplines which come within the spectrum of Western Esoteric tradition. They come from the same source in the way that from the grape comes wine, jelly, grape-juice and cognac - all are different and yet all come from the same fruit. One cannot be considered better or worse than another because they are intended for different purposes, yet in the course of a meal each of them may complement the others. It is the same with Tarot and astrology. Among other things they may both be used for guidance on the path towards self awareness as well as for divination. Astrology uses precise calculations to draw up charts while Tarot uses images to stimulate information hidden deep in the recesses of the unconscious mind. e are all familiar with the Sun in the horoscope as the heart of the chart, a symbol of the self and the part of the personality which drives and strives to illuminate, elucidate and clarify. The image of the Sun is also featured in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck where it is associated with action, energy and confident planning for the future. In the Tarot the Sun suggests activity, strength and optimism, a good time to make confident plans for the future. he Mythic Tarot uses the image of the Greek solar god Apollo to depict the Sun, showing him crowned with laurel leaves, which were used to crown the victors of athletic and artistic contests. He is portrayed holding his lyre, for music was an important form
of expression for the Sun-god, transforming darkness into light and giving it meaning. If sorrows or fears were brought to Apollo in a song, he would take them away. Apollo's creative spark lifts us out of ourselves, especially through music, which speaks with a transpersonal voice, crossing cultures and centuries and embodying human tragedy and triumph. pollo was not only patron of song and music but of the arts in general - his attendants were the nine Muses. The arts act as a raising agent to humans, taking an individual to a greater level of consciousness, encouraging him or her to strive towards personal excellence. In both the Tarot and the horoscope, the Sun's position points to areas of inspiration and excel-
lence, yet it is worth remembering that Apollo's musical gifts once belonged to the ugly, coarse goat-god, Pan. Apollo wheedled the art of prophecy from Pan, while Hermes copied a pipe which Pan had dropped, claimed it as his own invention and sold it to Apollo. In this way the brilliant sun-god received both his music and his prophecy illicitly from the goatish, ugly and untamed god of nature - an image which suggests that shining creative endeavors often have their roots in darkness. he Sun in a horoscope represents the truly creative self - the vision of what one could become. The Mythic Tarot uses Apollo's bow and arrow as an image of the part of us which can see the purpose and reason for experiences long before we have understood or processed them emotionally. Apollo, in both the horoscope and the Tarot, is an image of the urge towards consciousness which exists in all life. The Sun symbolizes the thrust toward knowledge and a longing to rise out of the darkness of night, while the Moon in the Tarot and the horoscope represents the unconscious, the "not-yetknown", the world of feelings which are often ambivalent and unclear. he Sun symbolises the power of consciousness to enlighten the
darkness of the unconscious - "knowledge is power". In both the Tarot and the horoscope, the Sun stands for something greater than one individual's capacity to gain knowledge and insight. Apollo is an image of the urge toward consciousness which exists in all life, and he is therefore both the natural complement and antithesis to his twin sister Artemis, the goddess of the Moon. Through many centuries and through the rise and fall of many cultures and civilizations, the thrust toward knowledge and the craving for freedom from the bondage of dark, unknown nature has driven mankind toward impressive though dangerous heights. Apollo, the Sun, represents the spirit of intellectual striving, combined with a vision of the future which encompasses an ideal of perfection. hile the Moon is an image of a dark place where hope is often shaken if not lost entirely, the Sun's rays bring a sense of hope and faith which do not spring from any one person's striving, but from all of us, a human inheritance of nobility and determination which can restore our faith in ourselves because it is also a faith in the meaningfulness and purpose of the human journey. The image of the Tarot's Sun symbolises that indomitable spirit that has always struggled against superstition, helplessness, ignorance and bondage to fatalism and despair.
Apollo, the Sun, represents the spirit of intellectual striving, combined with a vision of the future which encompasses an ideal of perfection.
n a divinatory level, the card of the Sun augers a time of clarity, optimism and renewed trust. Yet the Sun-god can be ambivalent, and too much light too soon can kill if knowledge is premature and destroys the necessary time and darkness for things to gestate. Thus the card of the Sun follows the Moon in the Tarot, just as in myth they were twins. When the Sun appears in a Tarot spread it suggests a time in which it is possible to understand the pattern, to plan for the future and to move forward.
The Mythic Tarot by Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke Illustrated by Tricia Newell Rider London, 1986 ISBN 07126 30023
Whom doth the Grail serve?

A personal quest in pursuit of vocation
Astrology is an empirical art; the symbols we use have stayed alive for us through the centuries because our experience confirms their magical truth. It is by listening to peoples stories that we learn how universal the language is; and yet, paradoxically, each persons story confirms their own precious individuality. Heres one such story, moving and humorous, from Anne Whitaker.
Introduction
am special, and I am not... The seminar brought fully home that the paradox which I have long perceived to be at the core of everyones existence, is absolutely fundamental to my own. Born in the very last hours of the balsamic phase preceding the new Moon in Leo, in my horoscope Sun, Moon, Venus, Saturn and Pluto are all conjunct in Leo in the twelfth house, square Jupiter in Scorpio in the third. Ruler Mercury in Leo in the eleventh is conjunct Saturn and Pluto, guardians of the twelfth house cusp. he solar light burns in all of us. Astrology demonstrates that it burns more brightly in some lives than in others. I probably have more right than most to address the question of whether an over-allocation of the gift of light is a blessing - or a curse. The balsamic stage of the Sun-Moon cycle, and the placement of most of the Leo planets in the twelfth house, greatly amplifies and polarises the contradiction between the personal and the impersonal which I have been discussing.
e live within, and live out, a profound paradox. On the one hand, there are certain archetypal forces upon whose unfolding patterns through time and space the whole of life is predicated. There is a deeply impersonal dimension to human existence; over the millennia we all live out variations on the same basic set of themes. On the other hand, there is that spark of individual consciousness in each person which says, Here I am. Im special. Theres no one quite like me. Finding a way of reconciling those opposites is one of the fundamental challenges of being human.
Anne Whitaker is an astrologer, astrology teacher and writer based in Glasgow in Scotland. She has had many articles published in recent years, in a range of publications including The Astrological Journal, Self and Society, The Astrology Quarterly, The Mountain Astrologer (USA), Considerations (USA), and Astrolore. She has just completed a three year Diploma course at the Centre for Psychological Astrology by submitting a thesis on The Moons Nodes in Action, and is currently writing up a study of the lives of nineteen people in the West of Scotland plugged into last years Jupiter-Uranus conjunction.
have known this for a long time and like many other people have struggled with the paradox. Astrology with its symbolism, which can be used to describe both levels, has been of enormous help. But occasions of deep insight, where the dynamic of paradoxical forces can be understood and accepted at the level of both heart and mind, are rare. ne such occasion was the first Liz Greene seminar I ever attended, in December 1990. The theme explored was that of the interplay of Puer and Senex, the divine child and the wise old man, those archetypal life patterns represented primarily in the horoscope by Jupiter and Saturn. My whole chart is draped round a dominant square of those two planets; I sat rapt, recognising in the weave of the seminar key threads of my family inheritance, my parents struggles with life in general and each other in particular, and a key part of my own life pattern. found the seminar particularly affirming of my sense of teleology. Without needing an image of a personal God, I do need to feel part of an unfolding process which has meaning and purpose. The occasion also offered a corrective to the potential for the individual ego to gorge on its heady sense of uniqueness - This path I am walking many feet have trodden, driven by the same underlying imperatives. I am special, and I am not.
ow can you be the universally recognised and admired solar hero which all those Leo planets demand, when a vast oceans unending tidal pull is forever drawing you and your powerful ego back into its silent depths? Looking back over several decades of struggling to bridge the personal and the universal, I think I have at least some idea of what it was like for Parsifal in the Grail myths! The central task of my life has been to find ways of aligning a highly self-absorbed, individualistic, Romantic perception of life, and powerful creative drives, with the impersonal requirement to offer selfsacrificing service to the wider community and the higher powers of the universe. For a very long time, not knowing what the task was, I felt like a frighteningly small cork bobbing on the surface of a very big, dark, stormy ocean.
very aspect of my life has been shaped by this struggle. In keeping with the powerful demands of the twelfth house, it is the attempt to respond fully to the vocational call that I have
chosen to write about in this essay. As the reader will discover, all attempts to find my way of being a solar hero have been well assisted by a fine collection of solar heroes along the road!
In the beginning
was born on a small, frequently cold, wet and windswept island off the West Coast of Scotland; an appropriate place for someone with so many twelfth house planets. The sea defined my life: I loved it and feared it, swam in it, sailed on it, walked by it, lived by it - and when I was seven, owing to my fathers carelessness, nearly drowned in it. hildhood was full of larger-than-life male hero figures whose exploits, usually involving water and the sea, inspired my vivid and grandiose imagination. Maternal grandfather Calums last working years were spent as a Church of Scotland lay missionary sailing round the outer islands, ministering to his flock. He was an eloquent preacher. As a young man he had sailed to South America to work as a rancher, at one point taming wild horses on his own somewhere in the wilds of Argentina. One day he saved a mans life, in the absence of a doctor, by plunging his badly-infected arm into a pan of boiling sheepdip. aternal grandfather Fred was of genteel English upbringing. He had been a Royal Navy gunner in the First World War. Locked into his gun turret with his men, he was told to come out victorious or dead. He lived to be 81; I was given the medal he won for that episode after his death. y uncle Norrie was a wireless operator on a ship in World War II. He drowned when his ship was torpedoed in the last two weeks of the war. His was the only body found; having swum a long way to the French coast, he died of exposure on the shore. My uncle Red Murdo the salmon poacher was featured in a leading article in the Sunday Times in the 1970's. He was offered a great deal of money after that for his autobiography but declined, saying What do I want money for? I d only piss it against a wall. y father George combined the official occupation of senior local government officer with the unofficial one of most notorious poacher in the Hebrides, for over 30 years. He used to go out in his boat to check his nets in working hours in full public view; Why not? Ive done my public duty for the day! He was tried for poaching in the 1950's in a case that made national headlines; the QC he and his friends had hired secured them a Not Proven verdict. George had taken the precaution of dropping the bolts of the guns they had used over the side of his boat and into the sea as the police were arriving to arrest him. This produced the immortal line in court My Lord, how could Mr
Whitaker have shot twelve deer with guns without a bolt? hese characters, both present and in family memory, were the norm throughout my childhood. It never occurred to me that most other peoples lives didnt have quite the same bright thread of derring-do running through them as mine! he feminine principle was most powerfully represented by Granny Whitaker - clan matriarch, with a Leo Moon rising and strong Pluto aspects. The first female town councillor in the Outer Hebrides in the 1920's, she brought up three children of her own, and her sisters two when she died young. Running a shop, and latterly a boarding house, she had great style but never any money - like maternal grandfather Calum, she tended to give what she had to others in need. She was also a great environmentalist, fighting the local town council for years over the fate of a tree which was getting in the way of a new housing development. She won. To this day a wall can be seen which was diverted to go round the tree! Granny was a strongly masculine, strongly feminine woman - a kind of female solar hero - regarded by her community as a woman ahead of her time. I wanted to be like her when I grew up. y first encounter with the archetypal feminine in literature came through the vivid writings of H Rider Haggard, an English Victorian author whose myth-steeped adventures set in colonial Africa fascinated me. Ayesha,* the beautiful, sexually alluring, anciently wise and terrorisingly destructive queen who had found the secret of eternal life which eventually destroyed her, fuelled my dreams and my nightmares. I was very afraid of the dark in childhood, fascinated by death, what might lie beyond, and why we were here at all, spinning at unimaginable speeds through space on our tiny planet. I had a secret inner life fuelled by avid reading, with Grandpa Calum my only confidante. never felt safe during childhood. Plutos transit through the twelfth house crossing Venus, Moon and Sun, then squaring the MC/IC and crossing the Sun/Asc midpoint, all took place in the first ten years of my life; Pluto first crossed my Ascendant when I was fourteen. From ten to seventeen, Uranus crossed the Leo stellium, gradually catching up with Pluto. I grew up with unhappy parents in a stormy, unpredictable and sometimes violent marriage made worse by my fathers womanising and alcohol abuse. left school early at 16, having submitted my application to go to university to study English, Psychology and History, the previous winter. The triggering event, as transiting Uranus crossed my Ascendant, was an assault by my father. As the progressed Sun crossed the Ascendant to join Uranus and Pluto, I emerged
T T
*Appearing in She, by H. Rider Haggard, Penguin Popular Classics 1994 (first published 1887)
from prison with my father as the governor, little realising that I was entering a different form of prison, this time with myself in charge. Escape into the intoxication of running my own life had motivated my departure from home not any kind of reasoned vocational choices. I was the first member of my family to go to university, and was already regarded as strange.
Into the world - but out of it
hat did I want to do when I grew up? I had decided at eight years of age that I wanted my independence as soon as possible, would never marry and never have children. This was in response to the frightening emotional mess in which I grew to adulthood. At 12, I had passionately wanted to be an archaeologist. But this had been dismissed as a stupid idea. aving been fired up and inspired by all those solar heroes, the bright side of my family inheritance and the central figures of my voracious childhood reading, I certainly didnt want a traditional island womans life. I would be a free spirit! The conviction also burned deep inside me that I was different, special, and would be famous one day. There was no one around then to tell me that this was archetypal Leo grandiosity, vastly amplified in my case!
H
I certainly didnt want a traditional island womans life. I would be a free spirit!
he university years were a mess. Without the container, however unsatisfactory, provided by family and community, I nearly fell apart. Neptune in Scorpio in the third house squared the Leo stellium for the entire period and beyond. Uranus conjunct Pluto ran with the progressed Sun in the first house. I didn't know who or where I was. I had eating, drinking and relationship problems, and seventeen addresses in four years. The only stable male in my life was killed when I was nineteen. The following year, my first love fell over a third floor tenement staircase in questionable circumstances and died. Another man nearly killed me twice. There were regular periods of deep depression, culminating in a long dark night of the soul experience at twenty. At the end of it, I decided not to kill myself, despite the depth of my misery, but to choose life.
solar hero played a major part in shaping my future - Ken, my adviser of studies and an Aries Sun like my father. He was a diabetic who swam in the North Sea every day of the year including Xmas; his response to losing a leg because of his illness was to get an artificial one and take up long-distance cycling. We knew each other for twenty years until Ken became too ill to keep in touch; he baled me out of all sorts of scrapes, including being thrown out of university twice, and wrote the references for my first two careers. He was my good, safe father. There has been a mentor of that nature at every important developmental stage in my life. t took four years to do a minimum subject ordinary Master of Arts degree. To this day I regard its acquisition as one of the minor miracles of the Scottish education system. One vignette sums this up. I submitted a third year essay on the origins of the American War of Independence to my now eminent tutor, Owen Dudley Edwards. It was as late as it could possibly be, and had been dropped in a puddle in my rush to his office to hand it in. He returned it to me with a mark of 55%, and the comment, This essay bears all the hallmarks of the triumph of innate intelligence over little or no material. Your bibliography (I had cited Winston Churchills History of the English Speaking Peoples, having once had a cursory glance through it) I assume is a joke.
Post Graduate
ollowing graduation, it was my intention to live on a Greek island for a year and work at any old job, letting the future decide itself. Still only twenty I had to be twenty-one before applying for my own passport. Throughout university years, my father had resolutely refused to sign my passport form, thereby exercising the one bit of external power he still had over me. Dont try forging my signature, he had said. I know youre capable of it. Ill get Interpol onto you! Knowing he would, I didnt. The Greek island was out. This decided the next stage in the vocational quest. limmerings of a dawning realisation of where my energies could be going, determined the next choice. I had emerged relatively sane and moderately able to function from the nightmare of my university years, because of the virtually unbreakable creative spirit which had mysteriously kept me going even when I seemed, on the surface, hell-bent on selfdestruction. Not being aware of this at the time, for many years I couldnt quite understand why I hadnt died. he other major saving grace was the healing power of love - this I did recognise at the time. My advisers consistent behaviour towards me had been of patient loving kindness. A small
hy? There were human reasons; my love for my little brother, only a toddler when I left home, whom I did not want to saddle with such a legacy. Although desperately angry with my parents, I did not doubt their love for me, flawed though it was, and understood that destroying my life would also destroy theirs. But there was something at work in me during that long dark night for which I still cannot find adequate words. The feeling is of having been touched by the grace of God in the very depths of despair. Which god, I shall never know...
coterie of determined friends got me through my exams, resits, and more exams. At one point they had a rota to get me out of bed, make sure I got to the library, and wouldn't let me away until enough work had been done for me to scrape by. I owed my degree, and future, to the alliance of my inner spirit and their love. I was now beginning to realise that surviving harsh formative experiences might just be a qualification for helping other people in their struggles. I had been a nihilist for years, feeling the world was going to hell and nothing I could do was of any value. But having chosen to live, I knew how important the love given to me, one small person, had been. The desire to return this love to the wider community began to grow. I was groping towards being a child of the twelfth in an affirmative rather than a destructive manner. But there was a long road still ahead. embarked on a one-year post graduate course in Personnel Management, thinking vaguely that this was something to do with caring for people. Having discovered it was about being as minimally reasonable to the workforce as man-
agement could get away with, in order to get as much work out of them as possible, I became very Marxist and started to rebel. This, combined with the all-consuming nature of another tempestuous love affair, led to my being asked not to turn up for graduation. We dont want people like you as personnel managers, I was told. How right they were! nter another solar hero. One lecturer had inspired me throughout the course. A sociologist, he was a specialist on the relevance of Further Education to industry, and supervised my thesis which was on that very topic. The college didnt like me - but they kept my thesis for their library. This lecturer reminded me of the best aspects of my own father; incorruptible, he gave not a damn for bureaucracy or any authority he didnt respect. He was very much on the side of the students. I admired him, and he turned me on to the idea of becoming a lecturer in Further Education. The very next year, I did. Honest but very good references from him and my university adviser, added to my own ability to sell snow to the Eskimos when required, got me my first Adult Education job.
Anne Whitaker 16 August 1947 Stornoway Scotland 7:35 AM (BST) (Source: Birth Certificate) Tropical Placidus True Node
First career
M M
I
In the mid-seventies, with my progressed Sun crossing First house Urania, a strange little Irishman I met in a laundrette in Bath told me I would become an astrologer in my thirties. I thought this was tosh.
y teaching began with Saturn squaring the Leo stellium from the ninth house, on the waning quarter of the progressed New Moon cycle which began shortly after my birth. I was 22 and very scared of the responsibility. y remit was to teach university entrance English to mature students, as well as Liberal Studies to a wide range of obstreperous apprentices in various trades, most of whom were male, and all of whom were bigger than I was. It was in this first job that I began to develop the only tool which exerted any leverage on those lads : humour. Miss, fancy coming out with me tonight? We could go over my homework. Loud sniggers. Young man, when I take up babysnatching, you will be the last to hear about it. Silence. coped with the Liberal Studies, loved the English teaching, and have never worked so hard in all my life as in that first year, making the joyous discovery that I was capable of shouldering professional responsibility and inspiring trust and confidence in my students. owever, restlessness still drove me. In seven years I taught in five different parts of Scotland and England, picking up a postgraduate Diploma in Education along the way. In the mid-seventies, with my progressed Sun crossing first house Urania, a strange little Irishman I met in a laundrette in Bath told me I would become an astrologer in my thirtiess. I thought this was tosh. enjoyed teaching adults, and was popular with my students, always putting them first. But I hated the bureaucracy of the system, and the small-minded people who ran it. My bosses knew my priorities didnt fit theirs, and were deeply suspicious of me.
mainland Scotland. At one point I had three part-time adult education jobs, teaching university entrance English in one college, Drama in another, and Business Studies English in the central institution down the road. There followed two years during which, as one of my oldest friends succinctly put it, You locked yourself up in that daft wee flat in Dundee and nearly drove yourself crazy!
luto, ruler of the IC, was transiting Neptune throughout this time. It was a long and desperate, poverty-stricken period of confronting my illusions about who I was and what my life meant. It was another, less intense but more protracted, dark night of the soul. On realising I had writing talent, but lacked the ruthless drive which keeps people at it full time, the adventure ended. I couldnt make a career out of writing, and also discovered my terror of failure; it was now staring me in the face. Now nearly thirty, I couldnt be a wanderer all my life. Whatever came next, I resolved to stick to it. he most important thing to emerge, at last, from many years of restlessness and suffering, was a belief that something meaningful was going on which slowly, relentlessly, was forcing me to grow. A fragile sense of personal connection with forces much greater than myself was starting to form.
T I
was beginning to be able to swim in the deep dark waters of the twelfth house. For many years I had had a recurring dream of being swept away and drowned by a tidal wave. At the end of this period the dream came again. In the dream, knowing I had been drowned before, this time I knew what to do. Turning to face the shore, letting the wave carry me, I knew I would be all right.
Second career
t 27, as Saturn moved into the twelfth house, the progressed Moon, already there, began to cross all my Leo planets in its return to its own position, and Mercury progressed into Libra to square Mars, I returned to my native island to become a full-time writer, having written on and off all my life, with phases of having poetry and articles published. I also wanted to support my father. Scottish local government was being reorganised and he was having to apply for his own job, in the new Western Isles local authority. Old scores were settled for his defiance, incorruptibility and poaching exploits. He was given the Deputys job but couldnt bear not to be the boss; so he started early retirement proceedings as well as a major escalation of his drinking habits.
fter that dream, life began gradually to curve upwards. My last serious depression occurred at 38, the year after my father died. There have been no more since then, despite many hard times. Faith that my bright thread is woven into a meaningful pattern continues to provide an increasingly strong foundation for focussing and directing my creative energies.
Third career
espite a daily writing routine in a cosy little office in the air traffic controllers building in the local airport, I could only stand living at home for four months, and moved back to
s the progressed Moon emerged from the twelfth house, crossing my Virgo Ascendant on the way to meet the progressed Sun, and transiting Uranus in the third crossed Chiron, I got out of bed one morning and on impulse phoned the local social work department. I want to be a social worker, what do I do? Six unqualified social work jobs were just being advertised, and I got one of them, despite having an argument about poor wages with a scruffy little man who turned out to be the Director of Social Work for the Region. What they saw was who they got!
ight from the start I felt I had found my path. Loving the variety, unpredictability and challenge which social work brought, the high degree of mobility and autonomy which could be found within a structure of accountability, I also relished the opportunity to be an advocate for the rights of the vulnerable. I enjoyed the eccentricity and humour of my closest colleagues, and admired the courage of my clients. Quickly feeling committed to a social work career, I applied for training as my second progressed New Moon took place in the first house in Virgo. Saturn was still transiting the Leo stellium in the twelfth house, and Uranus had started squaring it from the third house. Yet again, a major life change was about to be dictated, apparently, by accident. y degree lacked a social science component; not thinking I was eligible to do a one-year post-graduate course, I had resigned myself to doing two years of training. However, to my great surprise I was offered a selection interview for Glasgow University for a one-year course. Discovering later that I had mixed up the course numbers on my university clearance form - and that finance would not have been available for two-year courses - it really felt as though Fate was intent on my going to Glasgow! t the end of the interview, the interviewer, a rather aristocratic English lady, said, Miss Whitaker, you seem very keen. What would you do if we turned you down? I looked her straight in the eye and replied : Miss Ford, I would undoubtedly go home and shoot myself. For a wavering moment, she thought I was serious. Then we both laughed. I got a place, and obtained my Diploma and Certification in Social Work the following year. I have lived in Glasgow ever since. social worker for nine years, I worked in only two different settings in the six and a half years following qualification. I was slowing down and sticking in at last, and finding exactly the same priorities that had caused me to abandon an official teaching career: organisation first, clients second, workers last. But I stayed, with my awkward priorities : clients first, workers second, organisation last. I loved the work, and with Saturn in the first house in Virgo approaching the progressed Sun, had begun to develop specialist expertise in child care; very appropriate for a twelfth house Leo with many childhood wounds still to heal in herself. y experience of adult education was utilised through rapid involvement in staff training and the supervision of student social workers. I also carried on writing, formally this time. My social enquiry reports and Childrens Hearing reports were often singled out for praise. Those diverse creative abilities were beginning at last to come together in one context.
y boss was another solar hero, last heard of flying in rickety planes to and from the Urals whilst establishing orphanages for abandoned East European children. In 1996 we met on the London shuttle, not having seen each other for 15 years. Within ten minutes he had offered me a job as a social worker in a Romanian orphanage. I said no, on the grounds that I was now an astrologer and had a husband and stepchildren to consider. What sort of an excuse is that?! he said, mischievously. He was wonderful. Sharing my maverick attitudes, he supported me to express my commitment in my own way. I was a high flier in the world of child care, expected to move up the promotional ladder quickly. ended my own career in social work over the fate of an abused and vulnerable three-yearold boy, having been told to place him in a third rate childrens home too far away from Glasgow for me to visit regularly. There were no foster parents available. I defied every manager I had, saying that this constituted such bad practice that doing it meant I had no professional ethics and might as well leave. Eventually, my boss found some lost foster parents with whom the little boy thrived. But my card had been well and truly marked. applied for a post in a newly-created child care team where there were six jobs. Saturn was transiting the progressed Sun. I was turned down. Knowing my career was over, I obtained a transfer to psychiatric hospital work, where I went shortly after my beloved boss left, remaining in retreat there for four years, until the next Saturn square.
Fourth career
eaching, writing and social work gave me ways of offering my energy creatively to the wider community. That was satisfying. I found that I could have the variety and challenge which I realised my restless spirit would always need, without the destructive discarding of jobs and relationships and roots which had characterised my late teens and the whole of my twenties. But connection with the bigger picture was what my soul still craved.
t 33 , just before my retreat into the twelfth house of psychiatric work, progressed Sun with transiting Saturn was squaring tenth house Uranus; transiting Uranus was on the IC/South Node, Neptune trining and Pluto sextiling the Sun. The Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at the end of the year was due to fall exactly on radix Neptune sextile Mercury. Any astrologer could have told me the Big Picture was about to require my presence! A male Aries friend, to whom I had said very little about an increasing interest in astrology, gave me a copy of Alan Oken's Complete Astrology2 for Christmas. I opened it and could not close
1 For a very interesting discussion on Why is the 33rd Solar Return so special? I refer the reader to Exploring Preliterate Sources of Astrology, Robin Heath, pp17-20, The Mountain Astrologer, Volume 10, No. 3, April/May 1997 2 Alan Okens Complete Astrology Alan Oken Revised Bantam trade edition August 1980
it - the connection was instantaneous, like a lightning bolt... met both astrology and my Aquarian husband Ian in the same year, and have remained closely involved with both of them ever since, Ian providing the human love and stability which has supported me as I have slowly worked to develop a deep connection with the impersonal symbolic world represented by astrology.
Synthesis
Editors Note: Anne supplied a sealed envelope, along with her copy, which she insisted that I open only after I had read her article. In keeping with Annes sense of drama, I invite readers to now look at the back cover of the magazine, where the postcard that is so meaningful to her, and which is so appropriate to her story and chart, is reproduced. became self-employed as Saturn made its first square to the Leo stellium after the Saturn Return, feeling strong and mature enough by then to attempt to bring all the diverse parts of myself together in my own project. I was a frightened but determined solar hero, taking on my biggest self-challenge! In his usual role of providing the big obstacle to spur my growth, my father dropped dead the month after I set up in private practice, just as Saturn squared the Sun, with progressed Sun moving into Libra semisextile the Sun/Asc midpoint.
ince then, I have been successful in bringing my talents, abilities and experience together in a way which honours my creative diversity without being superficial. I work as an astrologer, astrology teacher, counsellor, counselling supervisor, occasional broadcaster and public speaker, and writer. Since Pluto went into Sagittarius, Uranus into Aquarius, and Saturn into Aries, all triggering the Leo stellium again, I have completed a demanding astrological study course, and sent more of my written work out than ever before. Having come to terms with the twelfth house more, I feel less afraid of the outside world. y aim is to aid others in their efforts to be all they can be, whilst doing the same thing for myself. The great delight of astrology is being able, through its symbols, to function as a bridge from the personal to the universal for other people, thereby creatively living out the paradox which has so dominated my entire life, for a long time almost destroying it. y current verdict on the over-allocation of the gift of light ? It is both a curse and a blessing...
The Point in the Circle

The Image of Apollo in the Greco-Roman World
Archaeology supplies us with the evidence of how important the deities that we now consider merely archetypal influenced the daily lives and the environment of ancient peoples. In this article, Brian Hobley shares with us his research into the shapes of the ancient world, that in so many ways still shape ours.
he post-Renaissance use of a circle with a central point to symbolise the Sun in astrology is a practise whose origins undoubtedly lie in the Greco-Roman world.1 As a symbol of Apollo with the omphalos or world navel, its origins may go back beyond the 8th century BCE. As early as 750 BCE, Homer in the Iliad tells us for the first time that Apollo the Sungod was the god of seers - he interpreted signs for Zeus his father.2 As well as being a Sungod, Apollo was the pre- eminent oracular god, the principal Greco-Roman god of prophecy and divination.
Brian Hobley, FSA, AMA, MIFA, BA, MSt (Oxford), was Chief Urban Archaeologist at the Museum of London from 1969 to 1989, after which he took a Masters Degree at Oxford University with a thesis on cosmic symbolism in the architecture of the emperor Hadrian. He is currently working on a book concerning the symbolic significance of circularity in Greco-Roman buildings.
Philosophical background
o the early Greek Pythagorean philosophers, the Sun (logos) was identified as the heart/centre of the cosmos, the source of light and life. To Plato the Sun represented the Idea of the One as the source of existence.3 Apollo, to the Pythagoreans, was called the One. There are numerous interpretations of the name Apollo (Apollon) in Greek, and one suggests that Apollo means not of many. In the Greek alphabet, a circle divided into four quarters
equated to theos, God expressed as a point within a circle. Significantly, the early Egyptians considered God as the Eye of the Universe, and a point within a circle was regarded by them as a symbol of deity surrounded by eternity - the god Ra. n Greek mythology the circumference of the circle is represented by the figure of Okeanos, the great circle, the swift-spinning circular stream whose waves encircle the earth. We see this ouroboric stream depicted on the Shield of Achilles, where Okeanos was represented by the encircling edge of the shield, while the central knob of the Greek shield was called the omphalos.
Omphalos: The Sacred Centre
efore the concept of a spherical earth, the ancient Greeks conceived the earth as a flat disc with a central point or navel. This navel or omphalos represented a central pillar or sky prop, viewed as the axis for a sphere. The prop was originally imaged as a central tree rising from the earth to the sky. A. B. Cook has argued (continued on page 37)
The Centre for Psychological Astrology

Seminar Schedule - Autumn 1998
October 3 The Tarot (Minor Arcana) Juliet Sharman-Burke November 1 Liz Greene Apollos Chariot: The Sun in The Horoscope Part I
This first part of a double seminar will explore the meaning of the Sun in the horoscope from mythological, psychological and astrological perspectives. Special emphasis will be given to the mythology of the Sun as a symbol of consciousness and the development of individual identity and sense of meaning, through house, sign and aspects; the Sun as an image of the paternal inheritance; and the particular psychological problems which may arise when the Sun is involved in difficult configurations or unable to shine in the individuals life. This day will look at the Minor Arcana, studying the remaining 56 suit cards and using primarily The Mythic Tarot (although also using other decks), linking suits to elements and court cards to astrological signs. As much time as possible will be given to example reading in the group.
October 4 Planetary Containments
Lynn Bell
One way of looking at a chart is to examine what precedes and follows a given planet. What kind of company does it keep? The notion here is not so much one of in-between but of where a planet is coming from and where it is going. How is a planet coloured or conditioned by the last planet it contacts? What is it reaching towards?
November 8 Liz Greene Apollos Chariot: the Sun in the Horoscope Part II
This second seminar on the Sun in the horoscope will focus on the Sun and the process of creative expression; creative blocks and the specific ways in which the individual may work to feel better connected to a source of inner creative power through the Suns house, sign and aspects; the Sun in major secondary progressions; important transits over the Sun, particularly from the outer planets; and the Sun in terms of vocation and life purpose. This seminar as well as Part One will use case material and group charts extensively to ground astrological and psychological concepts.
October 11 Charles Harvey Heights & Depths and the Flight into the Sublime Neptune & Saturn & Individual Chart Work
Neptune and Saturn are a natural psychological polarity: Transcendence v Imminence, Unmanifest v. Manifest; the Flight into Sublime v. the Denial of the Sublime; the Idealist v. the Pragmatist. Where these planets are both strongly marked in a chart, or where their mid-point is activated, this can lead to profound dilemmas, tensions and both physical and psychological illness. This seminar will look at the manifestations and implications of this polarity and how to work with it in practice. It will also consider the significance and likely manifestations of the current long Saturn square Neptune in our own and clients charts. Please bring your own chart, including mid-point sort, for this seminar.
Nov 15 Charles Harvey Achilles Heels Wounds in the Chart: How to Work with Them
The chart positions of Saturn and Chiron often indicate areas where we experience personal blockage, limitation and wounding. But equally the position of Neptune and 12th house planets can show where a subtler kind of wound, weakness and capacity for self-sabotage can occur. This seminar will explore the signatures of these different weak and blind spots in the chart and psyches and how to work with them with yourself and your clients. The importance of midpoints involving these planets both as problem areas and potential solutions will also be explored. Please bring your chart and mid-point sort with you.
October 18 Darby Costello The Moon & Transiting Outer Planets

This seminar will focus on the Moon and its relationship to the outer planets. During the first half of the day we shall look at natal charts in which the Moon is aspected by Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and how to understand these aspects in their reflection of early conditioning and later emotional interactions. During the second half of the day we shall explore transits of the outer planets to the Moon with the aim of interpreting the underlying meaning of such aspects as they appear in various stages of our lives.
October 25 Karen Hamaker Zondag The Influence of the 12th & 8th Houses on Relationships
We often tend to look for the 7th house when we consider love-relationships or the 5th house for romances, but the water houses, and especially the 12th and 8th, have a subtle but nevertheless very strong influence on any relationships between parents and children, between friends etc. Understanding your unconscious wishes, fears, expectations and attitudes will help you a lot in creating a deep and open relationship.
Nov 22 Matjaz Regovec Mercury the Mercurius Astrological & Alchemical Perspectives
Astrological Mercury is an interesting, yet curiously neglected dimension of psychological astrology. For some reason we tend to overlook Mercurys deeper significance, yet the image of the alchemical Mercurius is extremely vivid and alchemical Mercurius plays a variety of very important roles. In this seminar we will explore the deeper astrological understanding of this much neglected planetary deity. Some of the different faces of Mercury will be examined including his aspects to other planets.
APPLICATION FORM
Name: Address:
CPA dip student yes/no
Telephone: I would like to apply for ____ place(s) at the following events:
Hans Baker Introduction to Psychological Astrology Sat Oct 3 Sun Oct 4 Sun Oct 11 Sun Oct 18 Sun Oct 25 Sun Nov 1 Sun Nov 8 Sun Nov 15 Sun Nov 22 Sat Nov 7 Juliet Sharman-Burke Tarot - Minor Arcana Lynn Bell Planetary Containments Charles Harvey Heights & Depths Neptune & Saturn Darby Costello The Moon and the Transiting Outer Planets Karen Hamaker Zondag Influence of 12th & 8th Houses in relationships Liz Greene Apollos Chariot: The Sun in the Horoscope, Part One Liz Greene Apollos Chariot: The Sun in the Horoscope, Part Two Charles Harvey. Achilles Heels - Wounds in the Chart Matjaz Regovec Mercury the Mercurius Orientation Day Student Staff Meeting (Only open to current and past Diploma students)
I enclose a cheque/postal order/money order in Sterling, drawn on a UK bank, for the sum of _________
Post to:Centre for Psychological Astrology, BCM Box 1815, London WC1N 3XX, England Telephone and Fax: +44-181 749 2330 Email:[email protected]
7th November Orientation Day with Liz, Charles and tutors for new Diploma Students - 10.30 - 12.30. RSVP. For all &ex-diploma students - 2.00-4.00 Student/Staff meeting, discussions and presentation of Certificates and Diplomas. Hans Baker is running 10 week Introduction to Psychological Astrology Course for Beginners/Intermediates at: Central Club Gt. Russell St. WC2 Price 150.00. Courses run in both afternoons and evenings. Call Hans on 0117 940 5537 for full details.
Please Note: All one day seminars are on Sundays between 10am and 5pm with the exception of Charles Harveys two seminars which will start at 10.3O am. There are two coffee breaks and a lunch break. You are welcome to bring all charts (preferably on acetate for use with an overhead projector) for discussion to all seminars. Fees are payable in advance and must be sent with your application form at least ten days prior to the seminar date. Late applicants cannot be guaranteed a place. The fee for each one day seminar is 37.00. If cancellations are received less than 10 days before the seminar the fee may be forfeit unless a replacement can be found. No acknowledgments are sent unless requested. Please enclose SAE. Venues: All one day seminars are held at Regents College, Inner Circle, Regents Park, London NW1 Nearest tube: Baker Street. The Tarot workshop is held at 209 Hammersmith Grove, London W6 Nearest tube: Goldhawk Rd/Hammersmith Broadway/Shepherds Bush. Introduction to Psychological Astrology Classes are held at Central Club, 16/22 Gt Russell Street, London, WCI Nearest tube: Russell Square Please do not turn up at a venue without booking in advance!
The CPA Press Order Form

Quantity Price
Apollon - The Journal of Psychological Astrology Issues 1-3 - including this issue Issues 2-4 - the three issues of 1999
One years subscription is 15 in the UK, 18 outside the UK - Save up to 20% on the cover price Back issues - Issue 1 - 6 including post and packaging
Books from the CPA Press

BARRIERS AND BOUNDARIES The Horoscope & the Defences of the Personality
Solid gold - AJ
Liz Greene
THE ASTROLOGER, THE COUNSELLOR
AND THE
PRIEST
Liz Greene & Juliet Sharman-Burke Juliet Sharman-Burke
...Should be not just recommended, but compulsory reading - AJ
THE FAMILY INHERITANCE Parental Images in the Horoscope

I would highly recommend this book.......It is rich reading - TMA
TO THE EDGE AND BEYOND Saturn, Chiron, Pholus and the Centaurs
like a true Centaur, Reinhart is blazing a trail for the rest of us to follow. AJ
Melanie Reinhart
VENUS
AND JUPITER
Bridging the Ideal and the Real
Erin Sullivan Darby Costello
I loved this book... I highly recommend it - TMA
THE ASTROLOGICAL MOON

High quality, exquisitely produced hard-back which wont fall apart when it has become a well-loved and often thumbed-through favourite - AJ
THE ART
OF
STEALING FIRE Uranus in the Horoscope
Liz Greene Melanie Reinhart
Teaching at its best. Horoscope
INCARNATION The Nodes and the Four Angles

A most worthwhile, mindful and user-friendly book which will enrich the library shelf of any student of astrology - AJ
THE HOROSCOPE IN MANIFESTATION
Prediction and Psychological Dynamics

Deep stuff... Rush out and buy Manifestation. - AJ
Liz Greene Howard Sasportas

TOTAL:
DIRECTION
AND
DESTINY
IN THE
BIRTH CHART
RECORDED DELIVERY for added security for international orders; requires signature on delivery. 2.50 per order
CPA Press book titles are 19.99 each, plus postage and packaging per item as follows: UK: 3.00 - Airmail to Europe (or anywhere in the world by Surface Mail): 3.50 Airmail to America, Western Asia, Africa: 7.00 - Airmail to Australia, NZ, Eastern Asia: 8.00
PLEASE
COMPLETE THIS FORM AND THE PAYMENT COUPON OVERLEAF AND POST IT TO:
THE CPA PRESS, 396 CALEDONIAN ROAD, LONDON N1 1DN, ENGLAND OR YOU MAY FAX IT TO US AT: +44-171-700 6717
Or you may order on the Web at: www.astrologer.com/cpa
I enclose a sterling cheque for the amount of Name Address Zip/Postcode Country Visa/Mastercard
Please charge my credit card the sum of
Cheques must be in Sterling and drawn on a UK bank
(UScustomers: please use full 9-digit Zipcode to speed delivery)
Telephone: Expiry Date
Email (if any) Signature
About the Centre for Psychological Astrology

The Centre for Psychological Astrology provides a unique workshop and professional training programme, designed to foster the cross fertilisation of the fields of astrology and depth, humanistic, and transpersonal psychology. The main aims and objectives of the CPA professional training course are: a) To provide students with a solid and broad base of knowledge, within the realms of both traditional astrological symbolism and psychological theory and technique, so that the astrological chart can be sensitively understood and interpreted in the light of modern psychological thought. b) To make available to students psychologically qualified case supervision, along with background seminars in counselling skills and techniques which would raise the standard and effectiveness of astrological consultation. It should be noted that no formal training as a counsellor or therapist is provided by the course. c) To encourage investigation and research into the links between astrology, psychological models, and therapeutic techniques, thereby contributing to and advancing the existing body of astrological and psychological knowledge.
History
The Centre for Psychological Astrology began unofficially in 1980 as a sporadic series of classes and seminars offered by Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas, covering all aspects of astrology from beginners' courses to more advanced one-day seminars. In 1981 additional evening courses and seminars by other tutors were interspersed with those of Liz and Howard to increase the variety of material offered to students, and Juliet Sharman-Burke and Warren Kenton began contributing their expertise in Tarot and Kabbalah. It then seemed appropriate to take what was previously simply a random collection of astrology classes and put them under a single umbrella, so in 1982 the "prototype" of the CPA - the Centre for Transpersonal Astrology - was born, with the administrative work handled by Richard Aisbitt, himself a practising astrologer. In 1983 the name was changed to the Centre for Psychological Astrology, because a wide variety of psychological approaches was incorporated into the seminars, ranging from transpersonal psychology to the work of Jung, Freud and Klein. In response to repeated requests from students, the Diploma Course was eventually created, with additional tutors joining the staff. The Centre continued to develop and consolidate its programme despite the tragic death of Howard in 1992, when Charles Harvey became co-director with Liz Greene. Richard Aisbitt continued to manage the administration with great ability and commitment until 1994, when the burden of increasing ill health forced him to restrict his contribution to beginners' and intermediate classes. At this time Juliet Sharman-Burke took over the administration for the Centre. Richard himself sadly died in 1996.
For further information, visit our website at http://www.astrologer.com/cpa or send a SAE to the administrator.
The CPA Press

Since the Centres inception, many people, including astrology students living abroad as well as those attending CPA seminars, have repeatedly requested transcriptions of the seminars. In the autumn of 1995, Liz Greene, Charles Harvey and Juliet SharmanBurke decided to launch the Centre for Psychological Astrology Press, in order to make available to the astrological community material which would otherwise be limited solely to seminar participants, and might never be included by the individual tutors in their own future written works. Because of the Centres module-type programme, many seminars are one-off presentations which are not likely to be repeated, and much careful research and important astrological investigation would otherwise be lost. The volumes in the CPA Seminar Series are meant for serious astrological students who wish to develop a greater knowledge of the links between astrology and psychology, in order to understand both the horoscope and the human being at a deeper and more insightful level.
(continued from page 32) that the word omphalos meant just what it says - the navel, that is, the navel of the human 4 body, not the hub of the universe. The omphalos represents the centre of sacred space, a meeting point between heaven and earth, the midpoint on the axis mundi, the world axis5 and centre of the universe. When Harmonia wove the veil representing the entire universe, she started with a representation of the omphalos at the centre and worked outward.6 ny centrally located place was called the omphalos of the region. At Apollos shrine at Delphi, seen by the Greeks as the centre of the earth, two navelshaped omphaloi have been found. The original omphalos was located within the temple of Apollo and was a model for others in ancient times. In fact the god himself was regularly imaged on Greco-Roman coins with the omphalos, and his temple was also represented with the pediment (the focus of sacred imagery) containing the circle with the omphalos as a point at its centre. 7
same juxtaposition of circular Apollonian symbolism with the omphalos in Roman architecture and religious symbolism. n sum, the symbol of the circle with a central point represented, in classical times, two strongly held basic concepts of the ancient classical world - centrality and circularity. The former is connected with manifestation, earth, and incarnation, while the latter is connected with the transcendent, heaven, and eternity.
The circular cosmos

hough the Babylonians attributed divinity to the planets, they never developed the concept of the celestial sphere, and neglected spherical geometry. The Greek concept of the celestial sphere guided Greek astronomy/astrology in an entirely new direction. The Greek idea of divinity, from the 5th century onwards, saw planetary worship - especially the perception of the Sun and Moon - develop and transform through Greek astronomy and mathematics and the ideas of Plato and Aristotle. The zodiac was a concept of the Babylonians, but was only fully developed by the Greeks with the introduction of the ecliptic.
Coin: Apollo seated on the Omphalos, 246-227 BCE, showing Far-Shooting Apollo with his silver bow seated on the net-covered omphalos stone at Delphi.
he Apollo temenos at Delphi was founded soon after 750 BCE. At the Pytho, the holy sanctuary, in a sunken area at the end of the temple (called the Adyton), would have stood the omphalos and tripod cauldron suspended over a round well-like opening in the ground. This juxtaposition of Apollo with the omphalos and underground pit sacred to the chthonic earth-deities - the symbolic meeting between heaven and earth - occurs throughout the ancient world. The omphalos name was also given in the Aegean region to other structures, such as omphaloid beehive tombs and altars. At Didyma, the great Apollo temple in Asia Minor near Miletos, an omphalos stands, where, over a round well-like opening in the ground, the tripod cauldron was set up. 8 There was also a circular altar in front of the temple. A widely used libation bowl called the omphalos bowl became all but universally employed for libations in the Greek world. 9
ythagoras (2nd half of the 6th century BCE) regarded the earth as another celestial body moving in a circle like the Sun, Moon, and stars around a central fire (the hearth of the universe), which provided the motion force for the whole universe. This belief became deeply rooted in Greek astronomy/astrology. Plato introduced an advanced concept, that of a world soul - the cosmos is a sphere having a circular revolutionary motion, in the middle of which God established soul. During the 5th century BCE the idea arose, through the important introduction of Orphic teachings, that the human soul comes from the gods, and after repeated trials returns to them, or else runs forever in a circle through the sphere of the cosmos. n sum, early Greek logic and thinking perceived a perfection in the order of the universe/cosmos, which was viewed as a living organism. The central focal point was the unmoving geocentric earth. All evidence that refuted this concept was rejected by an intellectual establishment intent on saving the appearances.
ome was provided with an omphalos or umbilicus by Augustus, of a circular shape the umbilicus Romae, dated around 20 BCE, and conceived as a point where all the roads converging on Rome met. Augustus was, throughout his life, a devotee of Apollo, and therefore it is not surprising that he was to reproduce the
1 We first know of the glyph from Fracastro, Homocentrica, Venice, 1538, p 50. Neubebauer and Van Hoesen (Greek Horoscopes 1.163) state that the earliest Greek horoscopes from the 1st century BCE contain no glyphs or ligatures except for the occasional use of the lunar crescent and a fallen cone (it looks like an inverted ice cream cone) which signifies the Sun. 2 Homer, Iliad, 1.87 3 Plato, Laws , 898e 4 Cook, 2.1.167. 5 Nonnos, Dionysiaca, 2.296-7, 4.290-1 (7.71 and 27.252). 6 Ibid., 41.294. 7 See A Catalogue of The Greek Coins in the British Museum, Central Greece, p 30, Nos 22 and 23, and Lydia, p 71, Nos 8 and 5, Arnoldo Forni, Bologna, 1963. 8 Burkert, 116. 9 Luschey, 1939. The British Museum has in its collections a bronze omphalos bowl or phiale of Greek or Phrygian origin, c. 7th century BCE, from Camirus.
Apollo and circular symbolism

pollo was widely worshipped in both the Greek and Roman worlds. Plutarch, the Platonist philosopher who lived in Hadrians time, was a priest of Apollo at Delphi for the first thirty years of his life. Renowned for the profundity of his thinking, he wrote: The Sun is 10 merely Apollos offspring. He then points out that many among earlier generations mistakenly regarded Apollo and the Sun (Helios) as one and the same God. ...[As] a body is to soul, vision to intellect and light to truth, so is the power of the Sun to the nature of Apollo; and...the Sun is his offspring and progeny, being forever born of him that is forever. 11 hotius, quoting Proclus, describes to us the ritual of the Daphnephoria in its worship of Apollo Ismenios. On the top of a decorated pole is fitted a bronze globe, from which they suspend smaller globes. Another smaller globe is fitted midway around the pole. By the topmost globe they mean the Sun, to which they actually compare Apollo. The globe beneath this is the Moon; the smaller globes hung on are the stars and constellations. Pindar (first half of the 5th century BCE) in his songs reflects in the Daphnephoria ritual the use of Apollos laurel bearing the globes and spheres. y about 700 BCE, written sources such as the Hymn to Apollo are available, and it is clear that by the 5th century BCE, Apollo began to be identified as a Sun-god. Hence lions and griffins, both of which have solar attributes, are in the retinue of Apollo. One of Apollos titles is Phoebus - the Brilliant - or Apollo of the Radiant Sky. This epithet appears on dedications as early as the 5th century BCE. To Plato, Apollo is he who causes [the heavenly bodies] to move together in harmony. Apollo was said to have been born, signficantly for our study of circularity, on the island of Delos12 in a group of islands known as the Cyclades - Greek for circle. The hub or centre of this necklace of islands was Delos. Here there was a circular sacred lake. On the island the famous circular Crane Dance, the geranos, was danced by Theseus and his followers around the Altar of Horns after they escaped from the Cretan Minotaur.13 ircular dances were performed by the Greeks from the earliest times, associated with the deities Apollo, Ares, Dionysos and Pan, who were all described as dancers. Two Apollonian ring dances are portrayed, of Dorian warriors dancing with Libyan girls. The labyrinth/geranos dance of Delos is featured on the Franois vase in the Firenze Archaeological Museum. A coin of Apollo from Polchos, dated from the 2nd century BCE, shows a circular labyrinth, and one likewise appears on a 7th century Etruscan jug found at Tragliatella, just north of Rome. Lucian, a lecturer on literary
and philosophical themes, reflects on the cosmic origins of circular dancing. It would seem that dancing came into being at the beginning of all things...For we see this primeval dancing clearly set forth in the choral dance of the constellations and in the planets and fixed stars, their interweaving and interchange and orderly 14 harmony. Encircling dances were thus traditional and common in Greece, as was a dance around an object such as a sacrificial pit or bothros lying within the circle. Such also was the Roman ritual of the lustratio.
s stated above, the Apollonian temple at Didyma had a great circular ash altar, which some scholars have argued was created within a circular temple or tholos. The sacred way from Miletus to Didyma began at the harbour, where a huge circular monument had been built. Circular symbolism for Apollo is thus clearly seen in many major monuments, structures and artifacts.
Circularity, the soul, and heaven

he old Roman gods, such as Jupiter, Mars, Janus and Vesta, gave to humans little, if any, hope for the afterlife - only Hades offered this, and the quality of this afterlife was dubious. Before the introduction of Orphic beliefs about the afterlife, contact with the old gods was made by a circular offering pit or bothros, dug as a contact point with the chthonic forces of the underworld. The universe was perceived as a clear duality - above, the inaccessible realm of heaven peopled by the sky-father and Olympian heroes, and below, the realm of the underworld. Sanctuaries known as herons were built for heroes or demigods, and are principally circular internally and square externally. A bothros may have had a round building - a tholos (Greek) or tholus (Latin) - built around it, which is a significant symbolic method of containing these frightening chthonic gods who could not be disturbed and certainly not destroyed. If we read the symbolism correctly, the circle (of Apollo, the One, the Light) contains and subdues the primitive powers of the earth and underworld. Once a sanctified structure in the ancient world was established, it was virtually impossible to abandon it without violating its sanctity - but the chthonic powers it served could be contained. The Athenian tholos in the agora, which survived for around a thousand years, is an outstanding example of that sacred continuity and containment. In constructing the tholos, the builders retained and consolidated a round poros or altar-like monument by demarcating it with fresh building materials. At Eretria a bothros pit is not only encircled by a tholos building, but the tholos itself is within a circular fence, thus reflecting the strong chthonic influences that needed to be contained.15
If we read the symbolism correctly, the circle (of Apollo, the One, the Light) contains and subdues the primitive powers of the earth and underworld.
10 Plutarch, The Obsolescence of Oracles, 433e 11 Harrison, 1977, 438. 12 Strabo, Geography, 10.5.2-3. 13 Plutarch, Theseus , 21. 14 Lucian, De Saltatione, 7.2.71 15 Seiler, 37, Abb. 18
he mystery religions, such as those dedicated to Cybele, Mithras and Orpheus, gave a new concept of life after death. Hence they had a huge influence on the Roman world, which extended into Christian doctrines in both subtle and obvious ways. Hercules (Herakles) was also the object of a mystery cult and was strongly identified with the belief in the afterlife. It was on the advice of the Apollonian Delphic oracle that the Romans imported the worship of the Great Mother Cybele from Pessinus in central Turkey, and she was duly installed in a temple on the Palatine Hill, which later Augustus paired off with another temple to Apollo. The mystery religions offered special knowledge, with secret rituals and initiations to assist the soul, through various levels and tests, to a final resting place among the stars. Failure meant an endless circle of ascent and descent. 16 Macrobius calls it the weary wheel. A Dionysian inscription captures the same sense of circularity, saying, I have flown out of the sorrowful, weary wheel; I have pursued the 17 eager feet the circle desired. Diogenes Laertius says Pythagoras was the first to assert that the soul went round in a changing wheel of necessity...18
ook argues, likewise, ...the adoption of a spoked wheel as a representation of the Sun, entirely on intrinsic grounds alone, both physical resemblances being circular...The spokes realistically imitate the rays and nimbus of the Sun.21 The Suns movement through the sky is, in addition, a circular motion similar to the rotating wheel. The Roman goddess Fortuna often appears with her Wheel of Fortune, a solar disc with an omphaloid hub at the centre, and this is frequently mentioned in Latin literature from the time of Cicero in the last century BCE.
Mundus
nother ancient pit construction that connoted centrality and circularity for both the Etruscans and Romans was that of the mundus - a pit, usually circular, covered by a vault and used as a place of worship and contact with the dead. The word mundus has an etymological meaning corresponding to the Greek universe or cosmos.22 According to Cato (234-149 BCE), this pitlike cell was vaulted like the sky. To Varro, the shape was that of a subterranean templum (temple) and corresponded with the heavenly templum, that is, circular.23 he mundus also had a second role, that of the source of a towns life - the sacred hearth or fire. Plutarch reports that the mundus was a round circular trench (comitium) dug into the virgin soil, into which were cast the first fruits or good things.24 This trench they call...the heaven, mundus, making which their centre, and they inscribe the city as a circle round it.25 In Rome the comitium dated to the 3rd century BCE, and was a circular amphitheatre of steps symbolising an augural (divinatory) temple. At Cosa in Italy the templum comitium was always circular. In other words, a new city or settlement required an act of ritual inauguration which was based upon the concept of centring the site at the hub of the universe, symbolised by a central mundus and an encircling ditch.
Sun wheels
poked wheels hanging from the ceilings of temples, as seen on Apulian vases, are commonly held by scholars to be chariot wheels. Their appearance is such, but in the context of a sacred place, their function should be considered more symbolic. Here, Philostratos in the Life of Apollonius helps, for he speaks of golden iynx wheels - celestial magic wheels that hung from a Delphic temple and are therefore probably Apollonian Sun-symbols. Such painted wheels have been found decorating the walls in Augustus house on the Palatine Hill in Rome. If the iynx wheel symbols are representative of Apollo, we might reasonably expect them to be found in Augustus house, considering, as we shall discuss later, this emperors overwhelming commitment to Apollo. Significantly, iynges and solar discs were known to have been placed in hero and cult sanctuaries as well as on the Greek shields (probably circular) spoken of by Homer.
Tholoi
lassical scholarship has long been attracted by the origins, development and purpose of round buildings in the Greco-Roman world. In Greece there are early forms that can certainly be dated before the early Helladic period, prior to 1500 BCE. Mycenean beehive tholos tombs are probably dated from the 15th to the 14th centuries BCE. These tholos tombs were built for the elite, yet more modest ones were also built for the common people. Constructed not only for sacred reasons but also for secular ones, their origins could lie in circumambulation dances, themselves based upon centrality concepts and the circular nature of the cosmos and the Suns path through the heavens. Greek astrology with its emphasis on the ecliptic
ionysius the Thracian (c. 170-90 BCE), a Stoic and grammarian, wrote a book (sadly lost) on The Interpretation of the Symbolism Concerning Wheels.19 Clement of Alexandria, quoting this work, mentions ...the case of the wheel that is turned round in the precincts of the gods... Such bronze wheels are known in Egyptian temples and sanctuaries, set against door posts so that those who enter can see them in motion. According to Jung, the wheel is an archetypal image, and the Sunwheel is perhaps the oldest image there is.20
16 Macrobius, In Somnium Scipionis, 1.12 17 Kaibel, Inscriptiones, No. 641 18 Diogenes Laertius, Compendium, 7.12 19 Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 5.242 20 Jung, 18.81 21 Cook, 2.57-93 22 Festus, Compendium, 154 23 Varro, De Lingua Latina 7.6 25 Ovid, Fasti , 4, 819-836
26 Neugebauer, 1983, 243, and Cramer, 1954, 8. 27 Macrobius, Saturn , 1.18, 7-11 28 Servius, Danielis ad Aen., 9.406. 29 Athenaeus, Compendium, 5.205d 30 Statius, Silvae, 3.1 31 Livy, Roman History, 10.23.2 32 Lucian, Vol. 5, astrology, 2.52.2 33 Reinach (1912), 280, Fig. 2.
began to develop at the same time that the Greeks were developing tholoi.26 Scholars have argued that Greek round buildings were connected to god and hero cults, and their round shape derived from containing the central hearth and altar or bothros pit. he most active development of tholoi occurred in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE. Their flowering took place in the late 5th and 4th centuries, epitomised by the construction of the tholos at Delphi II, the Olympian Philippaeon, and the tholos at Epidauros. The latter tholos has unique sub-floor structures which have entered the literature as a labyrinth of annular passages possibly used for maintenance or rituals. Serious questions arise around this idea because of the difficulty of movement in the very narrow space between the belowfloor walls. ho were the gods served by these tholoi? Macrobius, in reference to the cult of Helios and circular monuments, says that both Apollo and Dionysus use round temples.27 Servius states that round temples served Vesta (Hestia), Diana (Artemis), Hercules (Herakles) and Mercury (Hermes).28 Athenaeus reports a circular tholos shrine of Aphrodite (Venus) on Ptolemy IV Philopetros river boat.29 Statius informs us that Pollius Felis built a tholos to Hercules on or adjacent to his villa at Surrentium.30 Livy confirms the use of tholoi for the worship of Hercules: Moreover, at Rome there are two round temples to Hercules Victor...31 There is surviving today a round temple to Hercules Invictus by the Tiber in the Forum Boarium. The Marble Plan of ancient Rome shows the temple of Hercules Musarum (Muses) as a round temple. Hercules is a sacrificer and founder of altars, e.g. the Ara Maxima in the Forum Boarium. here is little doubt that both the documentary and archaeological evidence to date indicates that Apollo and Hercules were the most favoured gods for circular temples. Hercules was much favoured by emperors, Stoics, and common people. He was simultaneously a demigod, a god, and a hero. Pythagoreans revered both Hercules and Orpheus as having been inspired by Apollo, and thus they were seen as Sun-gods. In fact Hercules as a solar hero stood in for Apollo as an image of the god in mortal flesh. Hence he wears a lion-skin, the lion being the animal of the Sun. The hope of a celestial afterlife was encapsulated in the cult of Hercules. He was charged by Apollo to fight Hera, the Great Mother. As a hero, Hercules is renowned for his twelve labours, first known in the 6th century BCE through an epic poem by Peisandos of Rhodes. An association of this cycle of labours with the twelve signs of the zodiac is difficult to avoid. At Ingel, near Trier in France, a free-
standing monument shows the apotheosis of Hercules after his twelve labours, ascending to heaven via the zodiac. Above is a head of Apollo and two griffins, creatures sacred to the Sun-god. The temple of Hercules Musarum also connects Hercules with Apollo, as the Muses are Apollos companions or daughters. hough not mentioned by the ancient documentary sources as having a relationship with circularity, Asclepios, son of Apollo, clearly had close connections with this symbolism, as seen from the great tholos at Epidauros. Apollo was the supreme god of medicine and health through harmony (expressed as music). The soul rules the body, and the bodys health depends on harmony. Asclepios presides over the health of the body. Hygeia, daughter of Asclepios and granddaughter of Apollo, personifies health, and was closely associated with both Ascelpios and Apollo.32 A stone relief published by Reinach33 shows Hygeia standing close to a seated Asclepios. Her arm is fully extended, touching a large circular disc resting upon a pillar. This unique depiction clearly gives symbolic emphasis to the disc, which can be considered as having an Apollonian solar significance.
Apollo at Pompeii and Rome
he survival of the Roman city of Pompeii beneath volcanic deposits from the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE has preserved many details of town life that seldom survive archaeologically. In Pompeii Apollo was the chief deity. He and his sister Diana frequently appear as decorative motifs in the most important houses - for example, the House of Apollo and the Villa Oplontis. At the House of Apollo is a wall painting showing the god in front of a tholos, seated on a throne on a circular dais, with the figures of the Morning and Evening Stars (the planet Venus in her two manifestations) on either side of him. (See opposite.) At the Villa Oplontis, Room 14 is dedicated to Apollo, who is again seen in a wall painting standing in a tholos. He is nude except for a short cloak, and has luxuriant hair. The symbolic attributes of the god are depicted in adjacent wall paintings griffins, laurel and, most importantly, circles or discs with omphaloi or stars at their centres, hanging over painted gates. Archaeological evidence strongly supports the probability that the villa was used by the family of Poppaea, Neros second wife, and thus an Apollonian decorative theme was appropriate, Nero being totally dedicated to the Sun-god. n Rome Apollo retained full Greek character. He is worshipped with Greek rites and, exceptionally, he keeps his Greek name; it was never Latinised. It is, without question, the emperor Augustus (first known as Octavian) who established the importance of Apollo in the Roman world. Throughout his long life (he
Three Figures: Drawing of a fresco at the House of Apollo at Pompeii, c. 62-79 CE, showing Apollo in the centre on a circular dais with a circular coffered ceiling. Beside him are the two "Phosphori", the morning and evening stars, which were known to be the planet Venus. Apollo was often shown with these two facets of Venus because they follow the Sun so closely in its rising and setting; they are his "lightbearers". Adopted from a drawing by W. L. MacDonald held power for fifty-seven years), Augustus belief in Apollo as his adopted protector, patron deity and divine father never faltered. uetonius wrote, Caesar [Augustus] was in truth Apollo...34 The historian tells us of Augustus being born the son of Apollo,35 and stresses the solar connection: ...As an infant [he] was found, after being lost, in a lofty tower with his face toward the rising sun.36 These writings clearly have a propaganda value, but also reveal how Augustus wished to be seen by his people. At the age of nineteen, at the death of Caesar in 44 BCE, his bid for power began. At the battle of Philippi in 42 BCE, Apollo! was the battle cry. As early as 37 BCE, Octavians coinage for the first time introduces Apollo directly, using tripods as symbols. In 36 BCE, during his campaign against Pompey (or possibly at the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE), Augustus (then Octavian) vowed to build a temple to Apollo at Rome.37 Sited on the Palatine Hill, close to Augustus modest house, this great temple (which was later to house the books of Sybilline prophecies) was the most sumptuous and magnificent of all the early Augustan buildings. The only temple to Apollo in Rome before Augustus reign was the Temple of Apollo Medicus Sosianus, immediately north of the Theatre of Marcellus. This structure was eventually restored by Augustus, and, it should be noted, had a tholos, 5.2 metres in diameter, located centrally and immediately in front of the temple - a position not unlike that of the great Didyma temple altar tholos. t the same time that he vowed to build the temple to Apollo on the Palatine, Augustus had begun work on his circular mausoleum,38 and shortly after the Battle of Actium which gave him final victory over Mark Antony, he erected his own tholos on the Acropolis at Athens - the temple of Rome and Augustus, dedicated to his dynastic cult. The impact on Roman architecture of the great circular mausoleum in Rome was considerable. That Augustus controlled the architectural symbolism as well as the iconography can hardly be doubted. An interesting feature is the likeness of the structure of the tomb, as viewed from above, to the ecliptic, as the inner supporting walls (not meant to be visible) divide it into twelve segments. At the centre is an internal column which could be interpreted as a form of omphalos, as it carries externally at the top a statue of Augustus. At its base in the heart of the mausoleum lie the emperors remains. There is no structural need to place the statue on such a column, and therefore it must be of symbolic significance. (See over.)
ecent archaeological research has placed Augustus circular tomb at the beginning of a tumulus building tradition that was to last for
34 Suetonius, De vita Caesarum, 2.70.2 35 Ibid. 2.94.4 36 Ibid. 2.94.6 37 Ibid. 2.29.1 38 Ibid. 2.100
Mausoleum of Augustus (Drawing of the building at the top, with a circular ground plan beneath) G. Gatti, L'Urbe, 1938.
centuries. Some scholars argue that he could have copied Alexanders tomb, but there is neither archaeological nor documentary evidence to sustain this hypothesis. There is a greater probability that the circular shape was adopted because it was an Apollonian symbol, and its design was decided when Augustus was establishing his commitment to Apollo as well as to the Roman State.
he cumulative evidence for this suggestion is the work of a larger research report, and cannot be considered here. However, it can be stated that Augustan commitment to Apollonian circularity included what may prove to be a great circular open court built as part of the Augustan/Agrippan Pantheon built in 27-25 BCE, at the same time as the mausoleum. The original transverse rectangular temple built by Augustus, and called the Pantheon, faced north
on a vista to the Mausoleum. On the south side of the temple there apparently was built an integrated circular open paved courtyard or piazza whose shape and dimensions were adopted by the emperor Hadrian for his own Pantheon built between 118-128 CE, which still survives today and is considered by most authorities as the finest building of the Roman world. This building, a temple to all the gods with an oculus or opening for the Suns light at the centre of the dome, is rich in geometrical symbolism based upon the circle and sphere. (See opposite.) Hadrian adopted the circular shape for his own mausoleum, and Apollonian circularity surely had a profound symbolic meaning for him as it had for Augustus, his predecessor and model.
Geometry of the Pantheon This is the theoretical spherical and cubical geometry of the Pantheon (Temple to "All the Gods") built by Hadrian at Rome. Adopted from W.L. MacDonald, The Pantheon: Design, Meaning and Progeny, London, 1976.
Bibliography of modern works cited

Burkert, W., Greek Religion, trans. J. Raffan, 1987. Cook, A. B., Zeus: A Study of Ancient Religion, Vol. 1 (1914), 2 (1925), Cambridge. Cramer, F. H., Astrology in Roman Law and Politics, 1954. Gundel, H. G., Zodiakos, 1992. Harrison, J. E., Prologomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 1907 (1980). Harrison, J. E., Themis, 1912. Jung, C., G., Collected Works, Vol. 18, The Symbolic Life, 1992. Luschey, Heinz, Die Phiale, 1939. Neugebauer, O., A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy (1975). Neugebauer, O., Astronomy and History: Selected Essays, 1983. Neugebauer, O. and Van Hoesen, H. B., Greek Horoscopes, 1987. Reinach, S., Rpertoire de Reliefs Grecs et Romains, Vol. 2 1912. Seiler, F., Die griechische Tholos, 1986.
Fire and the Imagination

The Heart of Our Story
In an extract from her forthcoming book, Water and Fire, a transcription of a seminar she gave at the CPA in September 1996, Darby Costello explores the concept of fire, and encourages us to think about how we can navigate the air and earth and water by the light of our fire selves. Come in closer to the fire, and get warm...
Darby Costello studied psychology, philosophy, and theology at university in the mid-1960's. She then went on to study astrology with Francis Sakoian and Louis Acker, and also with Isobel Hickey in Boston. In 1971 she went to South Africa for a brief visit, and stayed twelve years. During that time she worked with the Museum of Man and Science in Johannesburg, recording the art and practices of the samgomas, the priest/priestess healers of Southern Africa. At the same time she began practising astrology, developing a wide clientele over the years. In 1983 she came to London. In the first few years she developed her practice, and began giving workshops and seminars to various groups. In 1988 she joined the Centre for Psychological Astrology, where she has been teaching and supervising students ever since. She also teaches for the Faculty of Astrological Studies, and teaches and lectures regularly throughout the UK and Europe. In 1996, Dorling Kindersley published Astrology in their "Pocket" series, written by Darby and Lindsay Radermacher of the Faculty of Astrological Studies. The CPA Press published The Astrological Moon also in 1996, and will shortly be publishing Water and Fire, from which this is taken.
here are two things about fire that I wish to have us keep in mind today. The first is that fire, by its nature consumes and transforms things. The second is that fire is generally destructive if it isn't controlled. These two principles operate on every level, as far as I know; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Terrestrial Fire
et's start with material fire, if that isn't a contradiction in terms. In the Encyclopaedia Britannica it says the evolution of man could be equated with his ability to handle fire. He couldn't come out of the warm tropical forests until he could keep a fire alive. According to this source it was around 500,000 years ago that we began to be able to handle fire. The first evidence of this is in China, with Peking man. Other men may have used it before, but Peking man definitely did. Before that, presumably, we met fire as a dangerous and terrifying element. It generates itself naturally through spontaneous combustion, through dry branches rubbing together, and through volcanoes. The sparks generated from rolling stones can get also get a fire going in nature. And then, of course, there is lightning. Do you know that there are approximately 10,000 electrical storms on the earth every day, and there are approximately 100,000 incidences of lightning striking the ground every day? Since it only happens a few times a year in England it must happen an awful lot in other places. It certainly happens a lot in Africa. When I was there through the 1970s it was still the highest killer of animals and people in South Africa. I wonder if that has changed? Lightning is obviously the greatest natural generator of fire that we have here on earth. o, we learned to guard and keep a flame from the fires we came across, about half a million years ago, but, we are told, it was not until around 10,000 BCE that we figured out how to generate it ourselves. This period is some time between the Old Stone Age and the Neolithic Age - the New Stone Age. One of
the earliest tools was a pointed stick of hard wood, together with a piece of soft wood with a very small hole in it. When the hard stick is twirled in the soft wood very, very fast, it creates a spark. Have any of you ever seen fire generated in that way? Very impressive. It must touch something very ancient in us - it feels so magical when the spark touches the wool or straw that you have ready. rom about 10,000 to about 7,000 BCE we got some sort of control over fire - we could generate it at will - and therefore we became free to move as far as our legs would take us. We could go into the cold places now, because we could take our warmth with us. Over time we found that we wanted to stay in some of these colder places, and we developed the technology that allowed us to clear land, fashion suitable dwellings and cook food with utensils that we made. Since that time we have been finding more and more ways to use fire power and we have handled increasingly powerful fires for our own use. Think of the atomic bomb. That is an extremely dramatic expression of fire power brought into shape and under control by human ingenuity, whether we like it or not. And think of a rocket firing - the fire power that it takes to get the rocket out of our gravity field and into orbit. I am not up on the latest technology, but I am sure fire is being played with all the time, and each time we put our brains to it, we come up with more exotic ways to harness it. Do you know that the simple friction match was developed here in England, in about 1827 - only 170 years ago by a man named John Walker? We have come a long way since then and the question is, of course, how well are we able to handle all this fire power. hen it is said, however, that the evolution of man is linked with his ability to handle fire, there is certainly something to it. Let me quote here from Britannica: "Modern history of technology and science could be seen as a continual increase in the amount of energy
available through fire and brought under human control. Most of the increased available energy has come from even greater amounts and kinds of fire. The control of atomic energy is merely the most recent step in the use of fire for the benefit of mankind." A huge amount of our technology is fire based, and it is our technology which has brought us to this level of civilisation. I know that we all have attitudes about this level of civilisation, but I am just stating a fact here, not making a moral judgement.
something so precious? And what happened when, through chance or carelessness, it went out? You can see why it still has its magic power for us - think of the incredible feeling a fire in a fireplace gives, or a camp fire.
The Danger of Fire

ll the way down to our animal roots, to the very beginning, fire has been extremely dangerous for us creatures. I don't know how many of you have ever been close to an uncontrolled fire. I've not been near one in a city, but I have in the bush, in Africa. In the winter, fires rage across the bush. One is constantly putting out fires, your own or someone else's. I remember jumping up in the middle of the night so often, and rushing off to go help put out a fire on some neighbour's land; getting closer to the fire, the frightening heat of it, and the sense of its potential unpredictability. The danger of it! The excitement of it! And the exhaustion at the end of it, when the fire is eventually under control. Every able member of the community is part of it every time. Well, those who aren't, aren't part of the community. The potential destructive force of the fire binds everyone together - it tests each individual, and at the same time it binds the community, but it is a harsh test and those who fail in courage are branded by that fire as visibly as those whose recklessness takes them too close to it. ave you heard of fire divination? There is a divination call ignis specio - to see in the fire. Anyone who has sat by a campfire for any length of time can imagine how easily one could develop this with the right rituals, discipline and length of time. Gazing into a fire which has been built and is contained, most of us enter an imaginal realm. Gazing into candlelight settles the mind and imagination too, and brings a sense of comfort that is very different to the comfort felt by water. Both speak to something primitive and deep within us - the realms of spirit and soul. n a simple way things get sorted out in front of a fire, if you are able to let it in. A fire can make you cry. A fire can turn tears to laughter. There's something immensely comforting about it when it is contained, and something immensely frightening about it when it isn't contained. Atomic bombs are fire controlled and contained, but they are almost too much fire for humans to deal with and, at this point, they are only used for destruction. Those who support their existence do usually believe their power of destruction is to stop greater destruction, but most of us are suspicious. Nuclear reactors represent fire power too. Again, there is really too much power for us to handle there, at this point in our development. The collective images which arise out of atomic bombs and nuclear reactors are pretty horrific. From these
Mythological Fire
here have been fire gods as long as we can remember. The Latin ignis, from which arrives our ignite, in turn comes from Agni, a Vedic god who was the messenger of the gods and the bringer of fire. It is interesting that Hermes is everywhere, even in fire. Fire in alchemy becomes spiritual fire and it is very interwoven into and akin to spiritual water. However, as fire it requires an agency of control if it is to operate fully in accord with its nature. It is said that common fire generates nothing but destruction. In many early religions, fire becomes equated with the Spirit. It was connected to the notion of the central life force itself, vitality. The Zoroastrians of Iran worshipped fire as the most subtle and ethereal principle and held it to be the most powerful and sacred power. They said it was kindled by God and presented directly to man by their deity. Flame was guarded, purified and cared for, long after we knew how to generate and use it. Even as late as the temples of Greece and Rome it was tended by the Vestal Virgins. When the Greeks migrated from one place to another, they tended and transported the sacred fire of Hestia. Even today, every Roman Catholic church has a perpetual flame. It is only put out when a church is deconsecrated. As long as it burns, the Holy Spirit inhabits the building. he Siberians honoured their fire god by keeping all filth and impurities away from fires and hearths of any kind. The Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru worshipped gods of fire with sacred flames that they apparently ignited in a concave metallic mirror by concentrating the sun's rays on it. It must have been so deep in us to hold fire as sacred - all those thousands of years where keeping it lit meant the difference between life and freezing or starving to death. All those years during which thousands of generations lived and died and no one could imagine that one day fire would be generated by any man, woman or child. We had to wait for lightning to strike, grab a bit of it, then go off into the wilderness where it might not strike for some time, and where we had to keep it alive or die. How precious it must have been, how valuable. What sort of man or woman would have been chosen to guard
...getting closer to the fire, the frightening heat of it, and the sense of its potential unpredictability. The danger of it! The excitement of it!
images, we feel that we are playing with more fire than we can handle, and that may be true.
Celestial Fire
If we survive the darkness, when the light returns it often shows us a new territory to conquer, a new creative field and another shape through which our hearts find meaning.
ut you can lose touch with fire, even the fire in your own Sun. Unless you can reach the central fire, the images at the heart of your Sun, then life is a two-dimensional grind. This central fire always illuminates your life - when it goes out, you go out. In truth, it doesn't go out, it goes back, you might say, to its home, in the realms beyond form. But that's another thing. It can seem to go out; you can feel as though it has been crushed by circumstances, by the daily grind of life, by the cruel and harsh necessities of life. But it is always there, burning at the centre. We lose touch with it sometimes - the images reflected in the fire go darker when we cannot find fulfilment through action, when our creative capacity has no outlet, and when we cannot make meaning out of the events of our lives. This must happen, it seems. It is part of our spiritual life, whether we are conscious of such a thing or not. Bodies get sick and emotions take us through the wringer. Our minds go blank or get filled with nonsense and we lose our light at times. When we lose that light, it usually indicates that we have arrived at a moment of transition. If we survive the darkness, when the light returns it often shows us a new territory to conquer, a new creative field and another shape through which our hearts find meaning. When St. John of the Cross wrote of the dark night of the soul he must have been speaking about this loss of fire contact. o the fire is always there, whether you have planets in fire or not, whether you are in touch with your spirit or not. Images from the archetypal realms are always playing through your spiritual body. The Sun is the source of light for all of us and each of us carries its light in our hearts. We know our source, we feel the heat from it in our bodies and in our hearts. We know when we are cut off from it - we feel cold in our bodies or cold in our hearts. We know directly, with fire-knowing. We don't have to think about it or do something to learn it. Remember the moment when you suddenly fell in love with astrology? You may have been reading a book about it, or listening to a conversation, or having someone do your chart, and suddenly, you got it, and you had to get more. The flame leapt up and that flame sent you on a quest and that quest has now brought in the other elements. You study it, you work with the intellectual concepts that circle the symbols, which you know in your fires - directly - but which you have to work to translate into language, into words that can convey this fire-knowing to others. You do your charts and in the day-to-day experience of this you work the vision into your being and into your
arby: Oh no, these moment of grace can come through water, earth and air too. The ones that come through fire, come as images. That is how you recognise them. You walk into a part of the forest where you see something miraculous, heart-stoppingly beautiful. Or you are waiting for a bus in the middle of the day, and suddenly the world stops and an image breaks through. There is nothing to be done. But if this happens often, then something must be done. It wants translating. And translation reduces the original vision. hat is one of the difficulties with fire - you see a vision, you sense the whole in the part, you get inspired and energised. You see the spirit of the thing. Then you try to bring it into your life, express what you saw in one way or another. You paint a picture. You write a song. You start to study astrology. And the work to develop the skills that will express the fire starts getting in the way of the fire. You study astrology and there are all these contradictory bits of information, and the people who give you the information turn out to be less perfect than you want them to be, and when you try to express your own knowledge it comes out clumsy and you are not understood, or worse, you are criticised. The work of bringing the fire into the world through our dense time- and space-bound selves is not easy.
A D
life until the vision, the fire-knowing, is expressed through everything you say and do. The fire has then found material which can express it, keep it alive, warming yourself and others in its light. his fire-knowing has to be translated or made manifest through other elements if it is to be communicated, or be of use. But not every fire-knowing experience must be brought down into manifestation. There are some instances of this fire-knowing - when you are in the heart of a spiritual experience, through meditation, religious ritual, certain types of drug experiences, and those moments which simply come, when the fire and the rose are one. In those moments there is nothing to be done. You are so profoundly connected to that which informs all and everything, that time and space are no longer your prison. These are what we call mystical experiences. Everyone experiences this at some point in their lives. What they do with it, is another thing. Most people can't leave it alone - they have to turn it into something. They have to translate it into action, into meaning. And who knows, it may be appropriate to do that sometimes. But I have a secret suspicion that in the case of mystical events, it might be best to leave them alone. They come unbidden from the realms of Spirit and they light up your life forever. udience member: Are these only available to fiery people?
nd yet, this is the work that we call creative - the spark, the vision, and then the years of practice to let it through the other elements so that it can keep life moving and changing. Fire is always transformative, but it both destroys and transforms. Love often begins in the fire. You meet someone, a spark flies between you, and your mind and body and emotions all start churning around. The fire gets it going. Whether this fire love turns into something that can nourish your whole life depends on other things.
the same images in their heart and mind. They imagine that those they love are operating on the same principles. : And so if I assume that we will both tell each other the truth all the time, and one day I catch him out in a lie, I am not just disappointed in him, I am shocked to my core! I know that total honesty is the only way to be with someone I love - no matter how much it may hurt him or me - and so I know that he knows the same thing. I am burned by the lies of those I love, if I am fiery.
iery people love passionately when the light is bright between themselves and the other. But there are problems in communication that have to be attended to. Have you noticed how difficult communication can be with very fiery people? The fire seems to give such a clear vision of the infinite potential in the relationship that it seems inconceivable to the fiery person, that the other is not seeing the same thing. Fiery people imagine that the one they love has
: Exactly. This is one of the difficulties of fiery perceptions. Similarly, you never know what fiery people are doing with information you give them. When people have strong fiery charts you speak directly to their imagination - they understand everything at once and patterns leap into being through only a few co-ordinates. You can tell them three facts and they leap to the principle behind the facts. They have highly developed faculties for pattern recognition. Of course what you mean to say is not
Fiery people imagine that the one they love has the same images in their heart and mind.
Sceno Graphia Systematis Copernicani (detail) from Andreas Cellarius Atlas, 1708
Just as there are three main powers in fire - heat, light and fleeting subtlety - so there are three similar powers in the souls essence; the power of life, of understanding and of desiring...
Marsilio Ficino in his Commentary on Platos Phaedrus
always what they perceive. And so communication can be confusing. They leap to conclusions and you may find out that what they took from what you said is not what you meant at all! You tell your four planets in Aries child how rude the man at the supermarket was to you and next thing you know, the police are phoning you. They have your kid in the station because he went to the supermarket and starting throwing tins of tomatoes at the guy. Or you tell a client with Sun and Mercury in Leo and four planets in Sagittarius that they know the nature of reality directly. You then have to pay attention because they might have stopped listening while you are telling them how easily this knowing gets distorted and how long practice of discipline and humility are needed if they are not to become destructive and get burned up. The next thing you know, they have started a religion and they are saying to everyone you told them to.
through the elemental fire at the heart of things. Listen to what Corbin says here: ...the light that is the manifestation of this lord through the fiery nature, through the elemental Fire concealed within the signature, is only perceptible to the organ of vision created by that same Fire. Like alone know like... his notion is expressed in different ways throughout history and through all cultures that develop their mystical visions into thought forms and rituals by which one can attempt to reach the place of vision again. It corresponds to the Platonic World of Ideas and the Neoplatonic Intelligible Realm as described by Plotinus. It corresponds with the reality described by saints and visionaries in all ages and through all times. One function of religious ritual is to create containers in which people can place themselves so to be receptive to this fire without burning up or going mad. Of course there are other functions of religion that are not so elevated or grand, but one mustn't forget that the high dwells with the low, in this world of duality. Religious mystical history is littered with people who tried to get there too quickly, or without the proper guidance or preparation. And it is littered with people who received the light and went off on mad destructive missions with it. They were unable to simply be grateful and full of awe.
: Barely. But do you see what I am saying here? Fire responds to images, because the nature of fire is imagination. The whole trick is what you do with the fire, with the imagination. On this earth, fire is not enough, knowing is not enough. We are water and earth and air too and in each of us these elements are mixed. The fire may be the heart of the mix, but it must interact with the other elements so that food gets cooked, imagined dwellings get built and poems and songs get spoken and sung.
A D
: You exaggerate!
o let's get down to the simple and obvious notions that centre around astrological fire. We speak of fire as exuberant, enthusiastic, full of faith, confident, zealous, bumptious - what else do we say about fire? : Fire is positive. Also thoughtless, heedless and reckless.
: Fire is impulsive and also intuitive. I was thinking about what you were saying about it coming from images. That is interesting. Do you mean pictures? What do you mean by images?
A A
Imaginal Fire
: OK, back into the imaginal realm... There is a book by Henri Corbin called Temple and Contemplation. He is writing about Islamic theosophy and he says that God, who is the Hidden Treasure, created creature to know him. But the intensity of the light (of God) had to be modified if it was to be accessible to perception. You could say that to see the light creatures had to be different variations of all light. The imago which is projected from this divine and eternal reality would be received according to the nature of the perceiving creature. Nature could be described as different variations of light. The Hidden Lord is manifested through the fire in different things,
he highest fire realms demand that you leave your discriminating mind at the threshold. This mind is useful and necessary for part of the journey, but there is a point where one must make a jump. It might be like sub-atomic particle physics, where the heart of it can only be reached through a leap away from your thinking mind into another realm of perception. As I said, this is the highest realm of fire. But there are lower realms, realms that are more common, part of every day life. As you walk along the street and you watch people coming towards you, most of them are not noticing you, they are in a world of their own. They are thinking, dreaming, remembering, imagining. They are feeling, sensing and moving along, partly in their animal bodies and partly in their imaginal bodies. Very few are actually thinking in the sense of working through a series of ideas - they are thinking in the sense of watching the drifting images that arise as they walk along. Some of these images are water-based, some are fire-based. Some of these images they could describe, if you stopped and asked them what had been in their heads a second before, but many of the images would be too diffuse for description - and of course many would be too private! Images have all sorts of density and range. When I say fire is about imagination I am not simply speaking of things you see in your imagination, I am speaking about a whole country, called Imagination.
Leonard Cohens Secret Chart

If all goes according to plan, this first issue is published on 1 October 1998 with a chart that has the fixed star Pollux rising in London. According to Bernadette Brady, Pollux has the following meaning: The pain of creativity. Pollux represents the painful process of learning and discovering. The tormented artist, the person who sees or encounters the more difficult side of things. These difficulties can take the main focus, swamping the person who constantly struggles to pull themselves into clearer light. If that doesnt warrant Leonard Cohens name going on the cover, nothing does. Here, John Etherington takes a look at the man and his music.
ndividual men must risk speaking the truth, their personal truth, for it will be the truth for many others. An old Chinese saying suggests that the one who speaks the right word will be heard a thousand miles away. For men to stop lying, to stop participating in the conspiracy of silence, they must risk showing their pain. Other men may reflexively, leap to shame them, or, out of their own fear, dissociate from them. But in time all will come to thank those who speak their truth aloud.
Buckley and Tori Amos have paid their respective musical tributes to Cohen. Two recent books have also helped to put the record straight.2 In this article, I will use astrology to outline the psychological themes in Leonard Cohens life, and to illustrate his creative process. lease understand I never had a secret chart to get me to the heart of this or any other matter, sings Leonard Cohen in The Stranger Song (1966). Leonard Cohens birthtime is unknown, but he has said that he believes he was born in the early morning,3 and has also been quoted as saying that he thinks he was born at daybreak.4 One thing of which we can be almost certain, is that he is a double Virgo, as Virgo (a sign of slow ascension) was rising, at Cohens place of birth, between approximately 4.15 and 7.00 a.m. Appearancewise, Cohen comes across as a Virgo. A typical early image of him is the photo on the cover of his first album. Here, we see him looking dignified and gentlemanly. He is wearing a dark jacket, his expression is serious, and the sepia tones lend themselves to the subdued presentation that is given. Overall his appearance is an earthy one. There are two possible Midheavens for Cohen - namely Taurus and Gemini. I would suggest that the more probable of these is Taurus, since the image that he presents to the public is one of sensual appreciation and considered action. For the Midheaven to be in Taurus, however, the Ascendant would have to be in the first six degrees of Virgo. Let us assume that this is the case, and for reasons I will later clarify, in an attempted rectification, 3 Virgo - making the Midheaven 26 Taurus (for convenience, both of these have been rounded-up to the nearest degree). For the time being, I propose that, initially at least, observation is the best tool in rectification.
James Hollis Under Saturns Shadow The Wounding And Healing Of Men1
eonard Cohen has been an innovative figure in contemporary culture for the past four decades. In the last thirty years, he has recorded eleven albums of a consistently high standard, all of which have a timeless quality. His songs show a remarkable insight into love, relationships and the human predicament. He has also proved himself to be a charismatic and entertaining live performer; yet his status has always been cult rather than mainstream. One reason for this is that much of his music has an unfolding beauty and subtlety that demands careful listening. Furthermore, his songs deal with areas of emotional experience that many people would prefer to avoid, such as pain, loss, fear, guilt and loneliness. Cohens music is most appreciated by those who gravitate to it from a psychic need. Those who do not understand it, or have not listened properly, associate him with doom, gloom, razor-blades, and potential suicide. This erroneous and widely spread association is very unfair to a man of such complexity and integrity. Cohen, however, by speaking his truth, has gradually come to receive greater appreciation. In 1987, singer Jennifer Warnes sparked a revival of interest in Cohens work by releasing an album of his songs. Since then, many top musicians including John Cale, Jeff
John Etherington has been studying and working with astrology for twenty years. He has the certificate of The Centre for Psychological Astrology, where he studied under Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas. John has taught astrology both privately and for adult education, in London. He has lectured at the Astrological Lodge, and has written for their Quarterly Journal. In July 1994, he founded Midheaven Bookshop, which he currently runs fulltime. He is also distributor of CPA Press Books throughout the world. This article is adapted from a lecture he gave at The Urania Trust in November 1996. He may be contacted at: 396 Caledonian Road, London, N1 1DN. Tel: 0044 171 607 4133 Fax: 0044 171 700 6717 [email protected]
iterary critic Sandra Djwa has said that Cohens dominant theme, the relationship between experience and art, and more specifically the suggestion that the value of experience
1992 Sony Music Photo: Dominique Issermann
1 James Hollis, Under Saturns Shadow - The Wounding And Healing Of Men, Toronto: Inner City Books, 1995, p. 105. 2 Jim Devlin, In Every Style of Passion, Omnibus Books, London 1996. Ira Nadel, Various Positions, NY: Pantheon Books, 1996. 3 Letter to the author, 14th October 1994. 4 The Canadian Astrology Collection: Canadian Astrology Press 1998. 5 Sandra Djwa, Leonard Cohen: Black Romantic, in Leonard Cohen, The Artist and His Critics: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd. 1976, p. 95. 6 Interview by Billy Walker in American Sounds Magazine, 23 Oct.ober 1971. 7 Ibid.. 8 Ira Nadel, Various Positions, p. 49 9 Death of a Ladys Man, London: Andre Deutsch, 1979, p. 198.
is to be found in the art or beauty distilled from 5 it, is a familiar motif of the late romantics. This succinct quote, with its emphasis on values could aptly be used to describe a 2nd house Sun in Virgo. However, since I am using a rectified time, I will be focusing mostly on the planetary aspects and sign placements of the planets in Cohens chart. Hence, most of the material is not dependent on an exact birth-time. From the planetary perspective, I will begin with the Sun. The following quotes from Cohens early recording career are highly expressive of his Virgo Sun. Referring to his own artistry, he says, I dont see it so much as creativity (but) as work;6 he also says, If a man doesnt have a standard of excellence his work becomes meaningless.7 Indeed, Cohen has always shown himself to be a perfectionist; only releasing an album when it has been refined to the highest possible degree. Virgos need for ritual is also important to him, whether it be three pages of structured writing per day or the discipline of a Zen training, which he has pursued for many years. To further emphasize how
strongly he epitomizes Virgo, I shall mention two quotations. The first is from Ira Nadels definitive biography Various Positions. Nadel says that Cohen is unusually tidy and concerned with detail. His homes have all been spotless and almost bare in their furnishing; his notebooks are all ordered by year, and his work habits reflect his concern with discipline and precision.8 The second is from Cohens own prose poem How to Speak Poetry. In this he urges the reader to Speak the words with the exact precision that you would check out a 9 laundry list. he Sun in Cohens chart makes only one major aspect to another planet, namely a sextile to Pluto. This aspect signifies the depth and intensity, as well as the powerful transforming quality of much of his work. It also shows him to be something of an outsider with a strong need, at times, for solitude. The SunPluto sextile explains Cohens ability to illuminate the darker areas of human experience, and shows that for him, creativity is closely linked to survival. Fundamental to Cohens chart is the
polarity between the Sun in Virgo and the Moon in Pisces. Thus, Virgos qualities of focus and attention to detail, particularly in the realm of the mundane, are polarised by Pisces attunement to the realm of the intangible, and to the feelings of the collective. It is Cohens great gift to be able to mediate between these two realms. Whilst language is usually associated with Mercury, Michael Harding and Gaila 10 Yariv have argued that it also has much to do with the Moon. This is because our initial preverbal experience of language comes to us directly from our mothers. I will describe Cohens parental background shortly, but for now we may note that his Moon is to be found in the poetic sign of Pisces, and quite possibly conjunct the Descendant .
n Cohens chart, the (wide) conjunction of the Moon and Saturn accounts for the melancholic nature of his early recordings, and also shows his ability to preserve a tradition. At the same time, the Moon-Uranus sextile shows that he has an intuitive perception of new currents, which enables him to keep moving forward artistically. The conjunction between chart ruler Mercury and Jupiter (which most likely straddles the 3rd house) brings a visionary dimension to his writing, whilst the Mercury-Mars sextile is a significator of mental sharpness. This aspect shows that, through the written word, Cohen is able to convey sexual and sometimes violent images in a powerful and cathartic way. The wide square between Mercury and Pluto reveals Cohens more obsessive and neurotic traits (he often refers to his writing as blackening pages). For Cohen however, application to writing can be a means of finding power and strength, and of overcoming any doubts about his own masculine effectiveness (Mars opposes Saturn, but both make harmonious aspects to Mercury).
n important factor of Cohens chart, is that Mercury (in Libra) is in mutual reception with Venus (in Virgo). Thus, the use of language harmoniously interchanges with the skill of artistic craftsmanship; poetry being a natural medium of communication. Cohen as poet and musician is clearly shown astrologically by the close natal conjunction of Venus and Neptune. Venus is associated with beauty, harmony and sensuality; and Neptune with idealization, dissolution, sacrifice, suffering and a yearning for the divine. Both planets are associated with music, poetry, and aesthetics. The conjunction of these two planets, possibly in Cohens 1st house, suggests his great charm and seductiveness. It also shows the hypnotic presence that he has when performing on stage. The Venus-Neptune conjunction, along with the Pisces Moon (that has some of the same qualities) reveals his deeply romantic nature, which tends to idealize women, and raise them to the stature of goddesses. Suzanne Verdal, with whom he had a close friendship, and Marianne Jensen with whom he lived, are supreme examples; immortalized as they are in two of his most famous songs. Cohen seeks redemption initially through women, and then through art; well described by Ira Nadel as art united with the recognition of the necessity of the spirit.11 For the sake of his art, however, he has to let the woman go, and ultimately the perfect love which he is seeking remains elusive. In Cohens own words: Theyll never ever reach the Moon, at least not the one that were after. Its floating broken on the open sea and it carries no survivor.12
ohen has said that he believes seriousness to be an agreeable thing, and this is shown by his natal trine from Saturn to Mercury. This aspect also shows the patience and time that he is prepared to devote to his craft. To give examples - his song Hallelujah was written over a three-year period, whilst another song, Democracy, was distilled from a marathon fifty or more verses to the six which are used in the recorded version. Cohens superb translation of Lorcas Little Viennese Waltz, which he set to music in Take This Waltz, took one hundred and fifty hours to complete. Although it is not so widely recognised, there is also much humour in Cohens work (another expression of his MercuryJupiter conjunction, perhaps). This humour, albeit quite black at times, can be found in his poetry, novels and later recordings. Cohen has said ironically, that in the future he will be seen as one of the greatest comics of his generation.
Neptunian theme which emerges often in Cohens writing is that of the sacrificial victim. In different songs he describes Joan of Arc burning in the flames, Janis Joplin fixing herself with heroin at the Chelsea Hotel, and the tragic tale of Nancys suicide. The theme of sacrifice also occurs in Story of Isaac; a song that accurately relates the Biblical story of Abrahams attempt to sacrifice his son. Another Neptunian theme is that of longing; a lyrical example being Take This Longing, inspired by the singer Nico. Elsewhere, the romantic longing extends into a longing for the divine. In fact, sexual and religious imagery are often interwoven. An example is Light as the Breeze from The Future, in which the act of fellatio is likened to kneeling at an altar. Another example is Sisters of Mercy from Songs Of Leonard Cohen, in which two girls to whom Cohen gives shelter for the night become figures of redemption.
t is important to consider the placing of Chiron in Cohens chart, where it is most likely to be found in the 10th house. In mythology, Chiron is the wounded healer who is unable to heal his own wounds. This is a role into which Cohen easily fits, and he has personally stated
10 M. Harding and G. Yariv,The Home of Language, Astrological Association Journal, March/April 1995, Vol. 37, No. 2, pp. 88-95. 11 Ira Nadel, Leonard Cohen - A Life in Art, London: Robson Books, 1995, p. 145. 12 Sing Another Song Boys from Songs of Love and Hate.
Leonard Cohen 21 September 1934 Montreal 4:29 AM (EDT) Rectified by the author Geocentric Placidus True Node
13 Melanie Reinhart, Chiron and the Healing Journey, Harmondsworth: Arkana, 1989, p. 196. 14 Howard Sasportas, Direction and Destiny in the Birth Chart, London: CPA Press 1998, p. 202.
that he believes the only way of resolving this dilemma is to find a means of embracing the wound. Ira Nadel has rightly observed that others suffering is alleviated through identification with Cohens work. Both of the personal feminine planets make squares to Chiron in his chart, and it is particularly apt that the man who wrote Aint No Cure For Love should have a Chiron-Venus square. Images of woundedness, often linked with relationships, occur in several of his songs. Your pain is no credential here, its just a shadow, shadow of my wounds he sings in Avalanche. In another song, Please Dont Pass Me By from Live Songs, he reveals his empathy with the suffering when he intones, I sing this for the freaks and the cripples, and the hunchback and the burned, and the burning and the maimed, and the broken and the torn. Regarding the square between the Moon and Chiron, Melanie Reinhart has said that men with this aspect may find themselves very aware of emotional suffering in others.13 Howard Sasportas has emphasized that it can show sensitivity to the mothers pain.14 Both of these observations are applicable in Cohens case.
The compassion that he has for those who have shared his suffering is beautifully expressed in his song If It Be Your Will when he sings, Let your mercy spill on all these burning hearts in hell, if it be your will, to make us well. aving outlined the main themes in Leonard Cohens chart, I will now briefly trace his life, and look at some of the major transits to his birth chart (all of the transits to which I here refer will, unless otherwise stated, be within one degree of exactness). Starting at the beginning, Leonard Norman Cohen was born on 21st September 1934, to Jewish parents in the upper-middle-class area of Westmount in Montreal, Quebec. Several of his near ancestors were rabbis, and his great-grandfather founded the first synagogue there. Appropriately, the origin of the name Cohen is kohanim, which means priesthood. Leonards father, Nathan, worked in the family business as a clothing manufacturer. Leonard is said to have thought of his father as reticent, withdrawn and introspective (suggested by the Sun-Pluto sextile, and Scorpio on the possible cusp of the 4th house). Nathan was wounded in the war, and died in
January 1944, when his son was only nine years old (Sun-Pluto aspects often show an early separation from the father). To honour his father, Leonard wrote his first poem, sewed it in a bow-tie, and buried it in the garden. To quote Ira Nadel (astrological references mine) - Art and sacrament (Venus-Neptune) and writing (Mercury, in mutual reception) became 15 fused. He also says that the death left a lasting scar, and that Leonard may have blamed God for what had happened (it took him until his late thirties to come to terms with it). After the loss of his father, Leonard embarked on a lifelong quest for father/teacher figures. It is noteworthy that transiting Chiron was square to his natal Chiron at the time of the death. Another significant transit, which occurred two years later, was the conjunction of Chiron to his natal Sun, which coincided with his becoming aware of the holocaust. eonards mother, Masha, who was of Russian descent, was quite musical. Suzanne Elrod (the mother of Leonards son and daughter, Adam and Lorca) is quoted by Ira Nadel as remembering Masha to be Cohens most 16 dreamy spiritual influence. He also says that she was by turns melancholic, emotional and romantic.17 She took on the role of nurse with Nathan and suffered much after his death, with mood swings and occasional depression. Apparently, she tried to make Leonard feel guilty for being too independent. All of these qualities are well-described by his Pisces Moon (square Chiron and widely square Saturn) and his Venus-Neptune conjunction (if we assume that Venus is the ruler of the Midheaven in his chart). Although Leonard Cohen was raised within the Jewish tradition, he was also brought up part-Catholic, by his Irish Catholic nanny. This explains why the imagery of the religion is prominent in several of his songs. Nadel says that the church represented romance to Cohen, which is not surprising considering his need for ritual and romance. This is perfectly symbolized by his Venus-Neptune conjunction in Virgo. Other beautiful illustrations of this configuration are linked to his teenage study of hypnotism. Nadel says that he wanted to transform people, to make them beautiful,18 and that he sought to be a magic priest.19 Regarding his hypnotism, the story is told that he once hypnotized the maid, and got her to undress. He has, of course, been hypnotizing women ever since! n 1949, Cohen chanced upon a book of verse by the great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who he jokingly says ruined his life. At the time, transiting Saturn was passing over his Venus-Neptune conjunction. It was thus quite fitting that this death-conscious poet, with his arresting imagery, should be the touchstone for Cohens future life in art. It is also of interest
that Lorcas Ascendant at 3 Pisces is opposite Cohens assumed Ascendant. Such a polarization is said to indicate a strong affinity between two people. Another major event for Cohen, that occurred in 1949, was the meeting with his first guitar teacher. He saw a young Spanish immigrant playing a guitar to some young women, and asked him for lessons. Mysteriously, after only the third lesson, his teacher committed suicide. Once again, Chiron by transit was making a hard aspect to his natal Chiron, in this instance by opposition. n his seventeenth birthday, Cohen registered at McGill University in Quebec, where he was to study poetry and literature. Transiting Saturn had just passed over his Sun, and the foundations were laid for his future creative work. His most influential mentor at McGill was Irving Layton, a successful poet, twenty years his senior. Together, they were to spearhead the modern poetry movement in Quebec. Upon graduation, Cohen furthered his literary studies at Columbia University in New York, where he arrived in Autumn 1956. As the path widened for his future success, transiting Jupiter was conjuncting Venus-Neptune in his chart. During 1956 his first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published, which linked together sensual and religious themes. In 1956-7, while Saturn by transit was squaring his Moon, he began to experience depression, and was experimenting with drugs. According to Ira Nadel, he had always understood drugs to be sacramental and ceremonial, not recreational20 (as we might expect from his Venus-Neptune conjunction). He also says that as he matured, Cohen began to display the characteristics of manic-depressiveness21 - including creativity and sexual activity, followed by withdrawal and anxiety. t was most likely a Pluto transit which signified a major turning point in Cohens career. Pluto was making a close conjunction to the assumed Ascendant when, in April 1959, he won a $3000 Canada Council Arts scholarship to write a novel in England. Cohen arrived in London in December 1959, when the transiting North Node was conjunct his Sun, thus pushing him towards his destiny. Upon seeing a clerk in the Bank of Greece with a sun-tan, he decided to escape the gloom of the English winter. He headed first to Athens, then to the nearby island of Hydra, where there was a flourishing community of artists and creative people. It was here that he met a beautiful Norwegian blonde named Marianne, who became his lover. This relationship was to last, with interruptions, for some six to eight years. It is worth noting that the transiting North Node made another significant conjunction later in the year, on this occasion to Cohens Venus. However, contrary to popular myth, he did not live an idyllic life on
15 Ira Nadel, Various Positions, p. 5. 16 Ibid., p.8. 17 Ibid., p.8. 18 Ibid., p.21. 19 Ibid., p.21. 20 Ibid., p.49. 21 Ibid., p.49.
22 Leonard Cohen, The Favourite Game, London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1970. 23 Ira Nadel, A Life in Art, p. 59. 24 London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1973. 25 London: Black Spring Press, 1992. 26 Tempe, AZ American Federation of Astrologers, 1971.
Hydra for a consecutive six or more years with Marianne. He was, every few months, hopping between Hydra and Montreal for different periods, and also spending time in America and England. Thus, he was very much the wandering Jew, which we may consider to be an expression of his Jupiter-Uranus opposition. n October 1962, Cohen finished his first (semi-autobiographical) novel The Favourite 22 Game . At the time, transiting Jupiter was conjunct his natal Moon, and transiting Uranus was conjunct his assumed Ascendant. The following year (that of his Saturn return) saw the publication of the novel, as transiting Pluto made a conjunction to his Venus and Neptune at 12 Virgo. Describing the book, Ira Nadel says, The link between pain and beauty is clear and reflective of the constant exchange between the two in Cohens work.23 As Uranus and Pluto came into conjunction in Virgo, they ushered in the Sixties revolution and, in the process, made further significant conjunctions to planets in Cohens chart. Uranus can signify sudden change, and with the exact transit of this planet to his Venus-Neptune conjunction in late 1964, Cohen released a radically different volume of poetry entitled Flowers For Hitler.24 Even more significantly, as Uranus and Pluto sat together on his Venus-Neptune conjunction, he completed his second novel Beautiful Losers.25 It combined erotic and religious imagery, and has been described as an exploration into the depths of madness (natal Jupiter square Pluto, perhaps). This revolutionary book, completed in a drug-induced frenzy, was to change the face of modern Canadian literature. Included is the extraordinary poem God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot - a piece of writing which to my mind epitomizes the Uranus-Pluto conjunction (according to Rex E. Bills The Rulership Book,26 gods are signified by Uranus and magic is ruled by Pluto). iterature, however, did not prove a lucrative profession for Cohen. In the spring of 1966, having written a few songs, he decided to head for Nashville with a view to improving his income by making a country and western record. This was not to be, for as Cohen himself has often said, he was ambushed by the scene in New York, where he stayed in a small room at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Key figures in the New York scene were Andy Warhols Velvet Underground, featuring the stunning German model Nico on vocals. Cohen became infatuated with her, but his longing was unrequited (during this period transiting Saturn was opposing his natal Venus). Whilst in New York, he was introduced to Judy Collins, who recorded some of his compositions on her best-selling albums. After hearing these songs, John Hammond, who had signed Bob Dylan, championed Leonard Cohen. The signing took
place in September 1966, and the album Songs Of Leonard Cohen was released on 26th December 1967. Several major transits to his chart were then occurring simultaneously. The most important of these was Uranus conjuncting his natal Sun, which signified the transition from writer to recording artist. Also, assuming that the Midheaven is correctly placed at 26 Taurus, there was a tight conjunction to it by the progressed Moon. should perhaps mention that Leonard Cohen has never expressed a particular interest in astrology. However, the introduction to his first song-book (from the late Sixties) said that he had been through drugs, I Ching, and astrology, and that he was ready to embrace any system which helped to clarify his position! One system that he did train in was Scientology (which he discovered in 1968, during a relationship with singer Joni Mitchell). Cohen was awarded a Scientology certificate known as a Grade IV Release (transiting Jupiter was conjunct his assumed Ascendant). Soon after this, he met Suzanne Elrod, with whom he had a long and complicated relationship. This coincided with a move to Tennessee, where he rented a farm. He is said to have felt somewhat isolated here; it being a time of despair and disappointment for him, leading to a mental breakdown. Cohens self-exploration and spiritual questing brought him into contact with Rinzai Buddhism, and Joshu Sasaki, the master Roshi, who leads a community on Mount Baldy near Los Angeles. Although Cohen initially found the Zen training to be too physically demanding, he repeatedly returned to the community for personal reorientation and discipline. Roshis name for Cohen was Solitary Cliff, and the goal of his teaching was to annihilate that which gets in the way of the true self - very appropriate for one whose only planetary aspect to the Sun is from Pluto. uring 1968, Neptune was sitting on the assumed IC in Cohens chart, transiting Saturn was opposing Mercury, and there was also an eclipse, which conjuncted his Sun, on the day after his birthday. All of these configurations suggest the uncertainty and change that he was, no doubt, experiencing during this period. In March 1969, his second album, Songs From A Room, was released. It is a bleak and austere, but deeply moving work, which includes themes of sacrifice, suffering and suicide. He said that more people would come to appreciate this album when they entered the same psychic landscape that he had inhabited during its creation. He was right, but the record was still very successful at the time of its release. In retrospect, it can be seen as a record which represents the shadow side of the Sixties. In April 1969, as transiting Jupiter conjuncted his natal Sun, Cohen was offered the Governor Generals Award for Poetry. He refused it,
however, saying While much in me strives for this honour, the poems themselves forbid it 27 absolutely. ransiting Pluto was closely conjunct Cohens Sun from January 1970 to July 1971. His first tour began in May 1970, and he said, quite appropriately at the time, I dont want purity any more, I want it dangerous. Later that year, he was to follow Jimi Hendrix on-stage at the Isle of Wight Festival. In 1971, Songs Of Love And Hate was released. This was an even darker album than the previous one, and also more intense. It has, quite justifiably, been compared to the work of the Belgian singer, Jacques Brel. The book of poetry that came out of this period was The Energy Of 28 Slaves. Cohen called it a raw book that openly records my pain.29 I can strongly recommend it to anyone who wishes to study the effects of a major Pluto transit! From this volume comes the following verse:
Welcome to this book of slaves Which I wrote during your exile You lucky son-of-a-bitch While I had to contend with all the flabby liars Of the Aquarian Age.30 n the spring of 1972 Cohens second tour took place. Throughout the year, transiting Neptune was squaring his natal Moon, and he seemed to be quite vulnerable. In Jerusalem, in a seemingly drugged condition and with tears in his eyes, he ended up breaking down on stage. This incident is recorded in the film of the tour, Bird On A Wire. In addition to this, with transiting Saturn conjuncting his natal Chiron and squaring his natal Venus, his relationship with Suzanne was de-stabilising. His next album of fresh material, New Skin For The Old Ceremony, records some of the traumas of his relationship problems, but also shows his yearning for some kind of rebirth. I said father, father change my name; the one Im using now is covered up with fear and filth and cowardice and shame, he sings in Lover, Lover, Lover. The cover of the album is the coniunctio spirituum showing the union of male and female. This image from an alchemical text had been revived in Jungs Psychology And Alchemy.31 Cohens use of this image suggests he was seeking the harmony of the masculine and feminine principles; not only outwardly, but also inwardly (i.e. with his own anima.) ransiting Uranus was opposite Cohens natal Uranus throughout 1975, and the years of 1976-7 saw the dissolution of his marriage. In late 1977 the album Death Of A Ladies Man was released. This record, produced and co-written by Phil Spector, was the only recorded work where Cohen lost artistic con-
trol. Throughout this period, transiting Neptune was squaring his natal Venus. The album was followed by the book Death Of A Ladys Man. In 1978, Cohens mother died, following an opposition from transiting Saturn to his natal Moon. The next album, Recent Songs, was an extremely beautiful though underrated work, and is among his very best. This serious and focused piece of art was based on the type of music that his mother had known and loved. It was symbolized astrologically by a conjunction of Saturn to his natal Venus, and a conjunction of Pluto to his natal Mercury. pproaching fifty and his Chiron return, Cohen needed to find a true sense of direction. He pursued his spiritual quest, mainly because he felt so stuck. To quote Cohen, I discovered the courage to write down my prayers. To apply to the source of mercy.32 He also said, I wanted to affirm the traditions I had inherited.33 Thus, he returned to Judaism and attended synagogue as transiting Saturn made a prolonged conjunction to his natal Mercury (he still considers Judaism to be his religion). 34 Emerging from this period was Book Of Mercy - a book of modern psalms that deal with spiritual longing. The album Various Positions that followed this, also contained religious themes. Despite their quality, both were overlooked by the public at large, and the album was not released in America at the time. t was a transit of Pluto, by sextile, to Cohens natal Venus that brought a full artistic rebirth for him musically; and on Valentines Day 1988 his album Im Your Man was released. It retained the passion and lyrical strength of his earlier recordings, yet had a fuller, more powerful sound which included the use of synthesizers (Uranus was trining its natal position and squaring the Sun in Cohens chart). The record was to become a great commercial success, and prompted a lengthy promotional tour. The album which followed in November 1992, The Future, was again highly acclaimed, and preceded another long tour. Most of the touring profits were spent on expensive wine (another perfect illustration of Venus-Neptune!)
his extract from the song The Future (originally titled If You Could See Whats Coming Next) was certainly prophetic of the, then imminent, Uranus-Neptune conjunction:
Things are gonna slide in all directions. Wont be nothing, nothing you can measure anymore. The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold And it has overturned the order of the soul. When they said REPENT, I wonder what they meant.
27 Ira Nadel, Various Positions, p. 173, quoting Cohen in telegram from Europe. 28 Leonard Cohen, The Energy of Slaves, London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1972. 29 Ibid., p.116. 30 Various Positions, p. 115. 31 C. G. Jung, Collected Works, Vol 12, Psychology and Alchemy, London: Routledge, 1953. 32 Ira Nadel, Various Positions, p. 237-8. 33 Ibid.., p. 238. 34 Leonard Cohen, Book of Mercy, London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1984.
Photo: Agence Sygma - France The song Anthem, drawing on Kabbalistic sources, gives a more hopeful message: Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. Thats how the light gets in. about the Tibetan Book Of The Dead. Plutonic and Scorpionic influences have been integral to much of his creative output. It is particularly significant that from the beginning of his musical career until 1996, his progressed Sun was in Scorpio. We may also note that in his fifth harmonic there is a Moon-Pluto conjunction in Scorpio. n 1996, after many years, Cohens natal Venus progressed into Sagittarius (followed, within a year, by the Sun). This was the herald of a more philosophically and spiritually oriented era in his life and work. A once-in-a-lifetime transit occurred for him on 9th August of the same year, when transiting Neptune opposed his natal Pluto. Within a day of this, he was ordained as a Zen monk at the Mount Baldy community, where he has now been living for several years (natal Moon sextile Uranus, and North Node in Aquarius). Here, he cooks for his friend and teacher Roshi who is now over
ohens renewed success came to a certain culmination when he was honoured with the Governor Generals Performing Arts award. The news was announced on 5th October 1993, as Jupiter returned to its natal position in his chart. More changes were afoot for Cohen, and by the end of 1993, his three-year relationship with actress Rebecca de Mornay had changed. At the beginning of the following year, transiting Saturn was conjuncting his natal Moon and assumed Descendant. During 1994, with transiting Pluto sextile his Sun and trine its position at birth, he did the narration for a film
ninety years old. Cohen often rises at 2.30 a.m., and with shaven-head and robes for attire, spends much of his time meditating. This helps him to fully acknowledge his deepest feelings which, if avoided, he knows can lead to depression. He also does maintenance work, and in the winter has to shovel snow. He regards himself and his comrades to be the marines of the 35 spiritual world (very appropriate for a 12th house Mars). ecent interviews with Cohen combine Zen wisdom with ironic humour. They also make it clear that he is still composing music, and is considering writing another novel. At the time of writing, he is in the process of completing a new volume of poetry The Book Of Longing. The lunar eclipse of 6th September 1998, opposing Cohens Venus, suggests critical developments in his creative work and relationships. Simultaneously, progressed Mercury in exact sextile to his Venus-Neptune conjunction suggests an excellent period for the communication of art, and also for significant social contacts (especially with women). This should certainly be an inspirational time for him.
the Sabian Symbol for the Ascendant. 3 Virgo: Two angels bringing protection. Here surely are the sisters of mercy. To quote the song - All the sisters of mercy they are not departed or gone. They were waiting for me when I thought that I just cant go on. Cohens two singers, Julie Christensen and Perla Batalla, are also called the Angels. ith regard to the descendant, it is worth considering the Janduz symbol for this degree (3 Pisces) which is as follows: Under the portico of a fine mansion at night, stands a well-dressed gentleman waiting for a group of ladies and gentlemen to join him behind them is a very simply dressed woman. Behind her, from the far left, comes a tattered beggar tottering with 36 a stick. Here, from Cohens song Bird On The Wire, are the pretty woman and the beggar leaning on his wooden crutch.
o conclude, I will relate how I came to rectify Leonard Cohens birth-time (my personal approach to such a speculative matter being an intuitive and imaginative one). Before I had any idea what Cohens Ascendant was, I considered what might be an appropriate significator for an artist who was on the crest of a wave in terms of career success (this, I thought, should coincide with a major tour). I settled for Jupiter transiting the 9th house and approaching the Midheaven, and decided to check the position of Jupiter during Cohens major tours. Beginning with the poets tour of 1964, I found Jupiter to be at 17 Taurus. Next, I checked the date that I met Leonard Cohen (July 7th 1976), which was in the middle of a best of tour, and again found Jupiter to be at 17 Taurus. Realizing that I was on to something, I considered Cohens major comeback tour of 1988, and yet again found Jupiter to be close to the same degree in Taurus. Looking for symbolic confirmation, I decided to check the Sabian Symbols for degrees around 17 Taurus. Nothing seemed to be particularly significant until my eyes rested on the following:
26 Taurus: A Spaniard seranading his Seorita. Here, surely, is Cohens guitar teacher playing to the young women - or could it be the Spanish poet Lorca? I realised that I had stumbled on a possible Midheaven for Cohen (especially as 26 Taurus puts 17 Taurus at the Gauquelin degree). I thus rectified the chart to the appropriate time (4.29 am), and considered
o test my theory about Cohens birth time, I decided to set up an Astro*Carto*Graphy map for the rectified time. It occurred to me that certain places should figure prominently in it, and I was not disappointed; the results being as follows: through Britain there is a JupiterAscendant line - this is the country to which Cohen came to write his first novel, and where he has met with great success as a musician (this line also goes through Spain, where he has achieved great popularity); close to Hydra, there is a Moon-IC line - here he bought his first home, and lived with Marianne; through Nashville there is a Saturn-Descendant line - here he experienced isolation and the restrictions of marriage; through Jerusalem there is a Neptune-MC. line - here he is said to have dropped acid and broken down in public; and through Los Angeles there is a PlutoAscendant line - here he experienced the disruption of fires, floods and riots, but has also undergone a transformation through his Zen experience. Finally, on the subject of Astro*Carto*Graphy, it seems appropriate that my own Venus-Ascendant line goes directly through Montreal. This affirms my personal identification with Cohens work, even though, at the time of writing, I have not been to Quebec. or all of the reasons stated above, I conclude that Leonard Cohen was born at 4.29 a.m. (to the nearest hour, its four in the morning). But I may be wrong!
35 Interview by Nigel Williamson, Uncut Magazine, December 1997, p. 25. 36 Helene & Willem Koppejan, The Zodiac Image Handbook, Dorset: Element Books, 1990, p. 324.
All songs Leonard Cohen Stranger Music Inc.
Reflections
Experiencing Astrology
In Reflections well be asking our contributors to go away and read a couple of books, see a play, a concert or an exhibition, and come back and expand on their experiences for us. Sarah Bartlett read Experiential Astrology and the recently re-issued Astrology Alive.
abs Kirbys new book Experiential Astrology and Barbara Schermers Astrology Alive give excellent guidance for both individuals and groups about participating in astrology and experiencing the energies and patterns that resonate at any given moment in our lives. Both are leading exponents from either side of the Atlantic in the field of experiential astrology. As Barbara Schermer points out, this new astrology is in reality a re-emergence of the very old, from a time when archetypal energies were readily available and deeply felt. The books are aimed at the student, the professional astrologer, and those with some astrological knowledge, whether their background is from the arts, psychology, or spiritual practice. The idea is that to experience astrology, in whatever way you practice or whichever school you follow, is to bring astrology alive and to participate in your relationship with yourself and others. very astrologer has a different perception of astrology, but astrology seems mostly to be a bridge between heaven and earth where we can learn to walk alone. Some use this bridge for scientific research, for theory and abstraction, others walk upon the bridge as if it were a jetty into the spiritual realms, serving their needs for a platform for their belief systems. Others may simply love the drama of it all and create a dangerous bridge, narrow and unstable. They participate willingly, but only in the illusion. ut at the very centre of the bridge a paradox lies waiting to snap at your heels, like a muzzled terrier. This contradiction is the very nature of living astrology. here are many who test out psychological astrology to see it if works for them. Some may stop on the bridge awhile and reflect and contemplate the human condition: they will look back at the earth-bound giants and forwards to the divine gods, to the place no one
Sarah Bartlett trained with the Faculty of Astrological Studies in the early seventies, gaining a Certificate; but she rebelled against the Faculty diploma! Shes an artist and a prolific writer, befitting a 5th house Sun in Gemini; a psychological astrologer, teacher, mother and woman, it says here. She has appeared on TV as an astrologer, and has contributed to newspapers such as the Daily Mail. Sarah has written the Love Signs series of astrology books for the Sunday Express; Feng Shui for Lovers, The Love Tarot; The Five Keys of Feng Shui; Women Sex and Astrology; The World of Myths and Mythology; and the recently published Mythical Lovers, Divine Desires. Sarah is currently working on another Feng Shui book, to be published next year.
M.C. Escher's Scholastica, illustration page 19 1998 Cordon Art B.V. - Baarn - Holland. All rights reserved.
knows for sure. There are those who consciously look over the edge of the bridge down into the great chasm of darkness below. These astrologers look into the very bowels of human beingness, to listen to symbols, to watch music, to understand better the flow of life in relation to the patterns of the planets. But it doesnt actually matter which particular school you adhere to; the muzzled terrier is about your own experience. abs Kirbys book Experiential Astrology draws on many different kinds of tried and tested psychological techniques, humanistic pathways and transpersonal creativity, psychodrama and guided imagery to make that bridge more structured and accessible. This is one way to bring awareness to ourselves and others - to begin to know what the essence of being a human being is all about, or at least try to. xperiencing astrology means having an awareness of our subjectivity, yet attempting objectivity. As in Barbara Schermers book, the essence of experience involves anything from role-playing, rituals, yogic and chakra energy balance, to observing your personal philosophy, art and psychology, all as part of a greater whole which astrology embraces. o live astrology may mean to seek out the still centre, yet to remember we are mortal. To seek the divine in inner and outer places, observe our reactions and the outer masquerades of ourselves and others, hopefully without judgement or arrogance. Being astrologically minded means we are usually curious about who we were before we were born, and we attempt to remember the absolute truth that the birthchart does not lie. It is through symbol that we are brought nearer ourselves, so why not bring it to life? We may understand parental issues, applying and separating aspects, pre-natal eclipses, configurations of addiction and insecurity, the cycles of the moon and the biggies, the transpersonal planets and their scouring pathways. Then the penny drops and
we begin to acknowledge the triggers that resonate with what we already are in essence. e may notice all these things, but also know that there is something far more mysterious at work. Perhaps this is why living the art of astrology is the nearest we can get to a symbolic experience. e are like Hermes when we both plunder the depths of our unconscious where few dare to enter, and yet ascend to the heavens to recreate ourselves out of our darkness. But the safety net of astrological knowledge brings us power and so we address the issues surrounding that power. This is when we can only return to the bridge again, the cycle of our lives reflected in the running planets, the cycle of the planets reflected in our own dances with life. he experience of walking across this bridge has echoes of the Taoist Yin Yang unity. Yin is like astrology - receptive, nurturing, symbolic, preserving with its ancient heritage, traditional roots and womb-like possibilities, always creating, always shape-shifting. Being can be likened to Yang - dynamic, self-aware, focused, an absolute arising in every inturned arrow of self reflection. To unify Yin and Yang is to live astrology, by whatever approach you get off on. But does the art appeal to many? Is the journey, and the participation in the unfolding of the great scheme of the universe and the unfolding of our own inner and outer growth, an easy option?
W W
how dull it is to be living with transiting Saturn sitting bang on the IC, but unless we truly understand what that actually feels like, and how it might feel to someone else, then our psychological theorising, however it is backed up with computerised graphs and statistics, create only intellectual arrogance, not an awareness of being.
f we have eyes unclouded by longing then we may also begin to reclaim our projections and see ourselves out there, rather than assuming we are only in here. Sure, we will probably carry on falling in love, projecting ourselves all over the place, do wrong, do right, search for a spiritual meaning, despise, hate and love, sacrifice and compromise, experience pain, hunger and joy. But if we really want to try our luck on the bridge with the terriers snapping jaws, we may with conscious participation sense an inkling of being only what we can be, for a while at least.
ven astrologers have their personal geis ( In Celtic mythology this was a taboo or curse given to the great heros and warriors at birth by an unknown benefactor). By transgressing their life-time taboos one by one, the heroic Celtic warriors eventually found inner peace and creative transformation. Similarly, psychological astrology enables us to attend to our own curses and taboos, for only then can we ever understand anyone elses.
oth these books are about a way of coming to terms with our true nature, to discover and explore ourselves, whether we are traditionally rooted, mundane, electional, horary or psychologically biased. Whatever turns you on. To see your astrology in action in relation to you, and to see yourself in relation to astrology is perhaps what experiencing it is all about. The trouble is, as soon as a new school, or a new way of thinking about astrology arises, it gets folded neatly into a package, it gets a label and a locker-room key all to itself. Suddenly it becomes separated, partitioned, defined and different from this kind of astrology or that. Maybe experiential astrology is more like the rain falling on many umbrellas. It is indefinable because it relies on each of us experiencing ourselves and holding up our own chosen umbrellas in our own unique way.
Astrology Alive Barbara Schermer The Crossing Press CA 1998 ISBN 0-89594-873-7
here is an old Buddhist saying, When you point your finger at someone else, dont forget there are always three fingers pointing back at you. Try it! Astrology is about putting our trust in the chart rather than the client, who may, like the equivocation of the fiend, lie like truth. So even when we are practising astrology we endeavour to be aware of our own reactions and perceptions, for if we do not, we may too easily point the finger, and the fiend becomes ourself.
ust as Astrology Alive and Experiencing Astrology gently remind us, living astrology is to experience the very essence of being who you are in any moment. In a sense it is to watch, observe and participate in the creative unfolding of yourself in relation to the astrological dance so that you may also have some understanding of others. It is about seeing through the illusion of self to discover the self, and it is about honouring what Alan Watts called of himself a coincidence of opposites - exactly what each of us is. oth of these books are invaluable guides to creative animated astrology, whether your intention is to enjoy the journey for yourself, or for teaching others a way towards that too. Living astrology is not just to practice it upon others, nor is it to become obsessional about the Moon. It is to reflect, to stand upon that bridge and see through the person that stands upon that bridge and still know that you cant lift yourself up by your own bootlaces. But to live it means exactly that - it is a lifetime art.
Experiential Astrology Babs Kirby The Crossing Press CA 1997 ISBN 0-89594-798-6
t is interesting how as astrologers we paint our portraits of our clients on the same canvas and with the same oils and brushes, yet the painting will always be different, clouded by our own unique perception. Each encounter is a new experience to be lived, each event in our lives, each transit we note and intellectualise about, each cycle we observe at work, is an experience of enrichment of soul and spirit as well as of intellectual savvy. We may remark what this means in astrological jargon, we may turn to our colleagues and friends and insist
Anima Mundi
Astrology in the Theatre of the World
Polarity in astrology is one of its most intriguing characteristics; in every sign or planet there lurk those qualities which are opposite in nature. As we have been examining Leonine creativity and individuality throughout these pages, its time to swap the microscope for the telescope, and zoom out to see the bigger Aquarian picture, the world around us. And theres no better person to do that than Charles Harvey.
No man is an island entire of itself: every our lives, the better our understanding is likely be of our own local story and the current man is a piece of the Continent, a part of to experiences of our clients in here. the main... any mans death diminishes his dialogue and dance between individual me, because I am involved in Mankind: and collective souls, which the astrologer And therefore never send to know for reads in the form of transits, is beautifully evoked in a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. whom the bell tolls: it tolls for thee.
John Donne, Devotions he unfolding cosmos is a series of interlocking stories. The mini-Olympian struggles, T comedies, commonplaces, triumphs and Charles Harvey DFASTROLS, is co-Director with Liz Greene of the CPA where he regularly lectures. He also teaches on the annual FAS Summer Schools at Jesus College Oxford, at his Bath Astrology Seminars, and in Zrich and Slovenia. His company Consider has just published a new edition of his and Michael Hardings Working with Astrology. His Mundane Astrology, coauthored with Michael Baigent and Nicholas Campion is the authoritative text on the subject. Charles is past-President (19731994) and now Patron of the Astrological Association. He is also Chair of the Urania Trust, the educational charity dedicated to astrology. Charles lives in Somerset with his wife Suzi Lilley-Harvey, with whom he co-authored Sun SignMoon Sign. They have two sons. Their latest book The Principles of Astrology is due to be published by Harper Collins in February 1999. tragedies each one of us enacts during the course of our life are not only written in our own personal horoscope and expressed through our individual soul. As in a hologram, analogous dramas, dilemmas and potentialities telling essentially the same stories are acted out at the time of our birth in the theatre of the world through the anima mundi,1 the World Soul or Oversoul. These archetypal stories can be found splashed across the news headlines, in the weather reports, the gossip columns, the movements of the markets, the racing results and every aspect of mundane existence. his phenomenon is what the writer, philosopher and scientist Arthur Koestler named The Secular Horoscope, the title he used for the first chapter of the initial volume of his autobiography, Arrow in the Blue. Koestler opens the book in the library of The Times newspaper where he is studying the main stories that were in the news around the time of his birth, and shows how these stories metaphorically reflect the kinds of issues with which his own life was to become pre-occupied.
That which oppresses me, is it my soul trying to come out in the open, or the soul of the world knocking at my heart for entrance?
he answer is of course both. Mundane astrology allows us to begin to understand T the deeper significance of seemingly random world affairs and what they mean for us personally and collectively, and how the out there and in here are essentially the same. he key tool that we need to master in order to decipher the unfolding plot of history is the planetary synods, the cycles of each pair of planets as they move from one conjunction to the next. For as Plato tells us in the Laws, the planets are the sources of the World Order, and in the Timaeus Time is the flowing image of the Eternal and the planets are the instruments of Time. In other words, the planets are the means by which the individual Godthoughts, the Gods, unfold the eternal Mind of the One into the temporal, manifest cosmos.
The Ultimate Video

n modern imagery, the planets are the different colour signals which weave together to I create the ever-changing images of the ultimate video of all videos. The whole story of stories is present on the video tape simultaneously in the eternal timelessness. But for the story to be intelligible in the temporal, manifest world the video has to be unwound, at a set speed in time, as a vast but orderly sequence of oscillations of colour pulses. The planetary cycles are what play out the different colour elements of the film. Mars unfolds the reds, Saturn the black, Jupiter the white, Neptune the violet, and so on. o, for example, the ever changing relationship between Jupiter and Saturn pulses out the dance between white and black, the unmanifest and the manifest, puer and senex, whilst Saturn-Neptune pulses out the black-violet
Plays within plays

n fact each of our lives is, as it were, a sub-plot woven within the great tapestry of history, and I is in many respects subservient to the larger saga. Just as Tom Stoppards Rozencranz and Guildenstern are Dead gives us an entirely new perspective on Hamlet, so mundane astrology enables us to obtain invaluable glimpses of the larger plot within which we enact our Midsummer Nights Dreams, Othellos, King Lears or Comedy of Errors. The more clearly we can see and understand the meaning of the Big Story out there that is weaving together all of
dance between the manifest, boundaried and subject to decay imminent and the unmanifesttranscendant paradisiacal, the actual and the ideal. In this way the inaudible, invisible symphony of eternal Colours, Sounds, Ideas is unfolded and woven into the seamless flow of formative images to create the fabric of the actual world. ach horoscope is a freeze frame in this ongoing performance which shows the videoengineer, the astrologer, the precise relationship between the sounds, colours, Ideas at that instant. The one crucial difference in this analogy is that with individual consciousness this is not simply a mechanical process. The individual soul can work to give clearer focus and ever deeper expression to their particular part of the story, so that the more we build up our own soul, the more we build up the soul of our neighbour, to paraphrase St Catherine of Siena. The astrologers job is to try to clarify the personal plot for the individual. The mundane astrologer attempts to shed light on the Big Story.
In the Penal Colony

afka, in his short story In the Penal Colony, depicts a prisoner fastened face down in a K pit whilst a caligraphic engine repeatedly enscribes with ever deeper cuts upon his back the words I am guilty. The prisoner will only be released when he is able to divine and speak the message that he can only sense but never see. And so it can seem to a struggling humanity that the planetary cycles endlessly sound out their symphonies like a mysterious web in which we are caught dancing like puppets, hearing but never truly listening to the meaning being sung. Kafkas prisoner is freed, as is Pinnochio able to live as a real human boy, by apprehending the meaning in the message of the gods. strology enables us not only to translate the letters and words in the message of the individual horoscope but also, by studying the predictable cycles of the planetary Gods, to scan past and future and to see where these words fit within larger sentences, chapters and stories, and then, ideally, as with the use of transits, show the relationship between. (See Anne Whitakers superbly eloquent autobiographical essay in this issue, p.26.) n each issue of Apollon I will be focusing attention on the global, social and cultural significance of a particular planetary cycle which is prominent in the sky at the time and alerting us to the kind of ideas, issues, situations and events that this will be bringing to the fore. This branch of astrology is still in its infancy but I hope that by reflecting on these processes we can gradually come to a greater understanding of what the cosmos is, as it were, asking us to bring to consciousness. n this first issue I will be focusing on the current long-running Saturn-Neptune square that is so dominating world affairs at every level at the present time, and that will continue to do so through into next April, 1999, when Saturn square Uranus will become increasingly the dominant flavour of the year. ut before embarking on unravelling specific details of this 36-year cycle of Saturn and Neptune and the colour of threads that this Idea contributes to the tapestry of life, we need to remind ourselves of some differences of
emphasis in mundane astrology compared to natal. Specifically in mundane astrology: Each planetary synod is seen as spelling out a total story of relationships. Like a film, later episodes, phases of the cycle, can only really be understood against the background of the scene-setting opening shots of the initial conjunction. The repeated cycles of each planetary pair, when viewed over time, form their own characteristic pattern as their conjunction phases move around the Sun and the zodiac. In the case of Saturn and Neptune their dance creates a nine pointed star over a period of 328 years - See their mandala in Figure 1. Each planetary synod expresses its formative processes at every level from the most physical to the most metaphysical. Each level of meaning has something to tell us if we listen to the Ideas behind their expression. A planetary pair is seen to be in a reciprocal relationship - e.g. in their cycle Neptune modifies Saturn quite as much as Saturn modifies Neptune. Which appears dominant at any point is a matter of perspective.
~ ~
Figure 1 Reading the Whole Cycle

s the planets steadily change relationship in the 360 of their dance from one conjuncA tion to the next, so the dynamic and dialogue change, from the fused intimacy of the conjunction, through the working relationship of the sextile to the conflicts and bust ups of the square, the mutual enjoyment of the trine to the confrontations and potential collaborations of the opposition and then back again through the returning phases. And of course between these major phases are the nuances and subtleties of discourse of each of the other harmonics: quintile, septile, semi-square, nonile, decile and so on. igure 2 gives a picture of some of the main phases of the archetypal cycle. In fact it shows three cycles which are familiar to us, the annual, lunar and daily, placed concentrically one within another so as to show their essential identity. The daily cycle has been depicted in the reverse of the normal convention in order to highlight the parallels. The cycle divides naturally into two main phases: The outgoing, waxing phase, from the dark of the New Moon to the light of the Full Moon, marks the progress of the root Idea, the thesis of the cycle as it proceeds out
1 The anima mundi, the Soul of the World, in Platonic philosophy is the term used to signify that principle which provides the over-arching unity of all things. It is that Unity of which our own individual soul is both a fragment and a replica, and to which we remain subliminally connected. The world soul is the animating principle that gives unity and identity to all things throughout the manifest world, enabling every entity to be both separate and yet identical in essence. The anima mundi is seen as the medium through which the Divine Ideas, unfolded by the planetary cycles, are distributed into the manifest world and each one of our individual souls. From this perspective, all things, from an atom to a super galaxy, participate in soul and are ensouled at the moment of their inception as separate entities. It is because of Soul in this universal sense that we are able to draw up a horoscope for a country or a company or this journal, Apollon. The myths of Osiris, Dionysius and of the other heavenly gods who are sacrificed and dismembered, refer to the way in which the unmanifest, transcendent One descends into the manifest, imminent many-ness of individual souls. The restoration of each separate soul to the Unity of the anima mundi is of course the purpose of the Mass, in which, by the consuming of the body and blood of Christ, we are restored in consciousness to our Unity in the Body of Christ.
Figure 1 The pattern created by the heliocentric dance of Saturn and Neptune over the period 19172245 AD, from Neil F. Michelsens Tables of Planetary Phenomena.
Figure 2 into the world and strives to manifest, express and establish itself. The incoming, waning phase, as the seed Idea, having reached its anti-thesis at the the Full Moon, midsummer, begins to return and distribute the fruits of its experience back to the world. here is no space here to describe the specific contributions each phase in this cycle has to make to the total picture. I have set out the significance of each of the main aspects in the cycle in Chapter 6 of Mundane Astrology,2 which is essential reading for anyone wanting to get to grips with this vital dimension of astrology. is the Our Father prayer which impels the aspiring soul to bring Earth into conformity with Heaven. This focusing of the vision can be quite literal. as Michael Harding shows in his brilliant book, Hymns to the Ancient Gods, where in an eloquent and beautifully researched study of Saturn-Neptune he shows how the period around the Saturn-Neptune conjunctions are repeatedly associated with major developments in the telescope and microscope, instruments which make the invisible visible and sharpen and clarify our perception of the hazy and obscure.
The Law of Expression

s natal astrologers we tend to think of the planets as specifically relating to character, A health and life events. The moment we start looking at the planets at work in the world we see that there is no limit to the ways in which they can manifest. Their faces are to be seen at every level. For example: The physical level - through seismic and geological activity, chemical reactions, the weather and other natural phenomena. In the case of Saturn-Neptune this is a highly seismic combination and is especially associated with flooding, as we see currently in China and much of Asia, and for example in the devastating floods in Europe at the 1952/53 conjunction. The biological level - through vegetation, epidemics (e.g. influenza named for its believed connection with planetary influence) and the activities of animal life. Saturn-Neptune, which at a physical level has much to do with the decay and disintegration of the body, is especially related to the emergence of new diseases and epidemics. The cryptic level, whereby the names of people, places and things will resonate with prevailing patterns. Thus in 1989 one of the prevailing clichs that attended the collapse of communism was The End of History.
The Saturn-Neptune Mandala

he mandala in Figure 1 (showing the pattern of conjunctions) shows the heliocentric T dance of Saturn-Neptune over a period of 325 years. We can see that each successive conjunction marks out the points of a nine-fold star. At the end of 325 years the conjunctions come back to a similar point in the zodiac. aturn-Neptune, like Saturn-Jupiter on another level, is the paramount cycle to do with the interplay of vision and matter, ideal and actual. This circular nine-fold form immediately reminds us of Apollon and the nine Muses which he brings into harmony. The SaturnNeptune story is in this sense the pre-requisite for the work of every kind of creative artist, be they musician or statesman, poet or doctor or mystic. It is about translating into earthly terms a vision and an ideal. It is the nine Muses who, each in their own area, lift the souls imagination to touch the Real Ideas which, being dynamic, impel the artist soul to action. aturn-Neptune is the process of materialising the spiritual and spiritualising the material. It is a cycle of clear-seeing which can capture glimpses of the Empyrean in sound or image. It
~ ~ ~
S
2 The definitive text on mundane astrology which includes a detailed discussion of each of the planetary cycles is given in Mundane Astrology - An Introduction to the Astrology of Nations and Groups, by Michael Baigent, Nicholas Campion, and Charles Harvey, distributed by The Urania Trust, 194 The Butts, Frome, Somerset BA11 4AG; Email: [email protected] Web: http://urania..org
The volitional level - through the policy ~ decisions and actions of individuals and leading figures in every walk of life, so that the Saturn-Neptune conjunction in Capricorn of 1989 accompanied enormous deflationary pressures from governments world-wide and the drive to eliminate waste and increase productivity. The emotional level - through art, fashion, popular crazes and the general shaping of the prevailing cultural trends through film, theatre, literature, music, etc. The intellectual level - through the current trends in thought and philosophy as expounded in academia, business, politics, lectures, books, periodicals, TV and radio programmes. The mystical level - which in the case of Saturn-Neptune is the essence of the synod: head in Heaven, feet on Earth, expressing itself through new religious and spiritual impulses.
~ ~ ~
Saturn-Neptune and the Socialist Dream

e could look at this Chronos-Poseidon W duad at all these levels and how they are expressing at the present square. We could explore, for example, the way the Earth-Water dialogue has over the past months been quite literally producing devastating bursting of dams along the Yangtse; disastrous mud slides around the world; bogging down the spacey aspirations of the Glastonbury Festival; the mud slinging against Diana, the Princess of Wales, and its spoiling of the Ideal and the rage that that engenders; the crisis over the erosion of the east coast of Britain; the emerging epidemic of police corruption including the final exposure of the web of deceit that led to the conviction and hanging of Derek Bentley at the 1952/53 Saturn-Neptune conjunction and the alcoholic suicide of one of the policemen involved; the plummeting price of oil and its impact on the debtor oil-producing nations; and so much else. Space, however, dictates that we confine ourselves to a consideration of the way in which this cycle expresses itself at the level of economic and political philosophy and practice. aradoxically (and all planetary pairings are by definition paradoxical and multifaceted) Saturn and Neptune can be seen as Capitalism (Saturn) v. Communism (Neptune) and as Faith (Neptune) v. Materialism (Saturn), as the actualising (Saturn) of the Utopian dream (Neptune), v. the destruction (Saturn) of the Utopian. Saturn, with his emphasis on selfreliance, individual identity and personal property, is opposed to Communism with its emphasis on the community, the collective, the merging of separate identity and resources for the sake of the All. Neptune says that property is theft, whilst Saturn considers Neptune the embodiment, if it has a body, of fraud, deceit and mendacity. This dance both speaks of Christian socialism and embodiment of religious ethic within the state, and atheistic materialism with the total repression and denial of the transcendant as a threat to the State. This is the story of idealistic womb to tomb of the welfare state, and yet also of the need to ringfence the state with walls and secret police to preserve the possibility of a Radiant Future from external contamination. he connection between socialism and Saturn-Neptune has been recognised by
astrologers since the end of the 19th century. It was the great French astrologer Andre Barbault who first mapped out the historical evidence and used it to forecast the crises for the Soviet Union of 1952/3 and 1989. Looking at the last five seed points, conjunctions, in this dance we find: 1846 - three conjunctions at 2718, 2620 and 2542 Aquarius - Karl Marx (Ascendant 23 Aquarius) and Friedrich Engels (Ascendant 28 Leo) formulating their Aquarian theory German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto (actually published 1848.) 1882 - conjunction at 1629 Taurus - the practical formation of many of the key trades unions and socialist groups in Europe. The German Empire (Pluto at 17 Taurus in 8th house, see Figure 3 below) under Bismarck becomes the first nation to introduces sickness insurance and social welfare. 1917 - conjunction at 445 Leo - the Russian Revolution and the creation of the communist Soviet Empire with its promise of the Radiant Future. 1952/53 - three conjunctions at 2247, 2138 and 2112 Libra - the death of Stalin and the rise to power of Krushchev begins the termination of years of repression and the beginning of the competition with the West. The most recent conjunction of 1989 (see the graphic ephemeris, Figure 4 overleaf) we need to consider in much greater detail. For this is the seed moment of the 36-year SaturnNeptune process in which we are currently engaged, and hence the thesis that the critical out-going square is now challenging. In 1989 there were three conjunctions at 1155, 1114 and 1022 of Capricorn. The impact of this death/birth process was amplified by the closing conjunction of Uranus to Neptune, also in Capricorn. 1989 was the greatest Year of Revolutions since 1848, following another Saturn-Neptune conjunction, and brought about the collapse of virtually every major communist state in the
Figure 3 German Empire 1 January 1871 00:00 (LMT: -0:53:28) Berlin, Germany Tropical Placidus True Node
11 55 Capricorn
11 14 Capricorn
10 22 Capricorn
Figure 4 (above) 45 graphic ephemeris for 1989 showing the three Saturn-Neptune conjunctions and the opposition from Jupiter through September-November - the three conjunctions are circled above, indicating their exact positions Figure 5 (below) 45 graphic ephemeris for 1989 superimposed on the German Empire chart (as in Figure 3)
world except China and Cuba. March saw the first democratic election in the USSR but also massive Chinese repressions in Tibet. In May Congress elected Gorbachev President of USSR. In June, as Chiron moved to the opposition of the conjunction, the student revolt was crushed in Tiananmen Square. In August came the resignation of P.W. Botha, President of South Africa and the beginning of the end of apartheid. In October came the resignation of the East German President and the emergence of a new democratic Hungarian republic. Most dramatically, almost exactly as Jupiter made its opposition to the conjunction in midNovember exactly with the old German Empire Sun and MC-IC (see Figure 5) the Berlin Wall disintegrated and German re-unification effectively began. The dam had burst, the flood gates opened. By the end of the year the old Soviet Empire had totally evaporated. t a technical level it is instructive to see how the October 1989 New Moon immediately prior to this final conjunction, Figure 7, when plotted on Astro-Locality chart (Figure 8 overleaf), shows the Saturn-Neptune opposite Jupiter right across the MC-IC almost exactly down the frontier between East and West Germany. At the same time the Moon is on the Descendant through the same region. Given the fundamental connections with the German chart already noted, this chart for the month ahead identifies the locus of popular dissent and yearning for liberation with uncanny precision. he collapse of the old Soviet Empire which followed this massive line-up was immediately greeted in the West as The Death of Communism, The Triumph of Capitalism and as The End of History (the ultimate Neptune-Saturn illusion!) t the time I, and other astrologers, noted that plus a change, and underlined that if people wanted to believe such fairy tales, they should reserve final judgement until after the thrice-repeated square of 1998/9 - Figure 9, inside back page, when Saturn in Taurus and late Aries squares Neptune in Capricorn/Aquarius. And here we are, a twinkling of a decade on and the Brave New World of capitalism is found to have some fairly severe cases of clay feet rot on its hands. All around us we are witnessing a state of economic and philosophic crisis in the institutions that were brought to birth under the conjunction. e may note that with impeccable timing, the present stock market crash was timed by the New Moon on 23rd July, immediately following the all-time highs on the major world markets around 20th July. This New Moon fell in close opposition to Neptune and square to Saturn. At this point the market (Saturn) started to crumble (Neptune) over the coming weeks, its falls being further accelerated by Mars in Leo completing a T-square with Saturn and Neptune on 20-26 August.
The Seeds of Evil

o what went wrong? Why this sudden disillusionment? As always it is a question of S over-identification with an archetype. Humanity finds it desperately difficult to steer the Middle Way. The Triumph of Capitalism led nave economists, well-meaning politicians, as well as cynics and opportunists, to totally embrace this distorted thesis. In consequence the conjunction saw an acceleration world wide
of the privatisation (liquidation) of state assets (Neptune through Capricorn). Most significantly, it saw the rush to globalise (a good Neptune word, the mirror of the Socialist International) the world economy into one free-market economy so that everyone could become consumers of capitalist goods. n a classic role reversal, Neptune as the prevailing myth of Communism ("workers of the world unite") was replaced by the myth of the free flow of capital. ("Capitalists of the world unite"). Total free trade (Neptune) became the self-evident Great Good. "Protectionism", the simple desire to retain some measure of intelligent, self-interested, national control (Saturn) over resources and to control the flow of international capital, became the Great Evil. No one chose to notice that historically the USA and Europe were until very recently two of the most "protectionist" economies. They both still are in terms of Saturn's area of agriculture. specially perniciously, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) began putting in place economic reforms in Eastern Europe and the Third World conditional on the destruction of inefficient systems of production and the creation of massive unemployment, as though individual peoples lives (allegedly dear to the West) were immaterial. With the influx of speculative investment (Neptune) into areas of cheap, desperate labour (Saturn), came instant fortunes for the few. But for vast millions these reforms have meant, in effect, a return to colonialism, with the colonial power being faceless International Capital without even the moral obligations of the old paternalistic colonials. hose interested in understanding the roots of the present crisis and the extent of the problems of the economic reconciliation of collective and individual economic philosophies should read the Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, Michel Chossudovskys
Figure 7 New Moon in Berlin 29 October 1989 15:27 (GMT) Berlin Tropical Placidus True Node Compare with the 1871 German Empire Chart, Figure 3
Figure 8 Astro-Locality chart for New Moon 29 October 1989 15:27 (GMT) For further discussion of location astrology and Astro*Carto*Graphy see Working with Astrology- The Psychology of Mid-points, Harmonics and Astro*Carto*graphy
Michael Harding & Charles Harvey
Consider 1998 ISBN 1-873948-03-4
Consider 58 Keyford, Frome, Somerset BA11 1JT [email protected]
devastating critque of Western post-1989 economic policy, The Globalisation of Poverty. This suitably apt Saturn-Neptune-titled book spells out how World Bank and IMF policies have, in the best Capricorn traditions, put in place the framework for a world of growing inequalities. The popular unrest from Indonesia and Korea to Eastern Europe is happening because of policies which ensure that a large majority are consigned to poverty and despair in the interest of a narrow sector of privilege and power. The seeds of this evil are now rapidly growing plants at this Spring point of the Saturn-Neptune cycle. s always at the square of the cycle, the basic thesis has to be questioned radically. The two principles are tugging tangentially to one another. Most vividly at the present time we are seeing the collapse of the banking system in Russia and the re-emergence of the old Communist party as a dominant player. But throughout the world where lopsided economic solutions and institutions were put in place, the least pleasant of Saturn-Neptune mud is hitting the fan. The collective is demanding that it have its part to play in the equation. Likewise throughout Europe, western and eastern, there is a sense of the need to find a Third Way and the growing awareness that we are poised on the brink of possible total financial collapse, and the simple solutions of 1989 are fundamentally flawed. Tony Blair in Britain, born in 1953 with his MC square
to an opposition of Mercury with Saturn-Neptune, is one leader struggling to find such a middle ground. hose captivated by Neptunian speculative greed on the stock market are now having to look to Neptunes concern for the greater whole. The SaturnNeptune international bankers who have put in place narrow, economic reforms are now having to face the bankruptcy, poverty and despair and the anger that the spoiling of the Ideal brings with it. Their insensitivity and indifference to the instant destitution their policies were creating in the name of economic efficiency are now being exposed. Neptune requires that Saturn live up to its rhetoric of individual dignity in distant places overseas as much as at home.
Looking Ahead
o what lies ahead? Ironically for the West, preaching unbridled global capitalism as the source of endS less growth, the sexy myth of free trade will begin to fade before the flood of ultra-cheap Asian goods. Pressures for Saturn "protection", denied to IMF clients in the emerging world as "reactionary", will no doubt seem entirely reasonable when our own survival is at stake. he coming months are likely to continue to be a time when Utopian longings meet hard facts, when self-deception and wishful thinking have to come down to earth, sober up and get real; when
2930 Cardinal 1 29 Fixed 4 7 Fixed
narrow IMF solutions and their obscene instructions to the starving to be frugal and eat less have to give way to the realities of survival and a larger, more imaginative, compassionate humanity. owever, to do anything requires leadership and the weight of authority. At Saturn-Neptune times this is a scarce commodity. So how Real can our leaders get without the perspective of the archetypal and the moral responsibility that that engenders? Many of the problems of this time are summed up by the picture of the leader of the West, crippled by sex scandals and a plummeting stock market, embracing the leader of Russia, the militarily second most powerful nation on earth, who is fatally sick with alcohol, a rampant Communist opposition, and a mafia-ridden and run economy. In Japan and Germany the leadership is equally in doubt. With Neptunes square, Saturn has lost his gravitas and authority. Who can possibly believe such leaders? ooking ahead, we can see that the next SaturnNeptune square occurs on 1 November at 2930 Aries/Capricorn, with Mars simultaneously on the midpoint from 1430 Virgo. This is a very vicious Terminator-type combination which falls close to a degree area much assocated with the US stock market, dollar, and Federal Reserve, and suggests further falls and instability. No matter what bounce there may be in the worlds stock markets, it would be unwise to put money in the markets before this time, or rather until after the Mars-Jupiter opposition of 6th November which is likely to mark something of a turning point.. he last Saturn-Neptune square in April 1999 falls once again in Taurus-Aquarius, this time at 407. We note that this is square/opposition the SaturnNeptune conjunction of 1917 at 445 Leo. This will certainly keep Russia and the old USSR states firmly in the melting pot with a continuing leadership crisis. This line-up also strongly implicates united Germany whose Descendant and North Node are at 426 and 515 Aquarius. The new Germany was born in Berlin at 0hrs on 3 October 1990, with the MC and Sun square Saturn and Neptune (a suitable signature for a state created of Capitalist and Communist elements!), which is further reason to expect Germany to be both
in the firing line and at the focus of attempts to grapple with the reconciliation of these two social and economic poles. t the same time we can anticipate that Communist China (3:15 pm, 1 October 1949, Peking) with its Moon rising in 311 and 557 Aquarius will certainly not escape from an economic and social battering. At a practical level this suggests competitive devaluations with neighbouring Asian economies. At a deeper level it suggests a tide of social unrest which will lead to radical reforms. he Saturn-Neptune square is not of course acting alone. It is immediately followed by Saturn square Uranus throughout most of 1999, the major Nostradamus eclipse of August 1999, and then the epochal Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Taurus in 2000. This is the last conjunction of the Great Chronocrators, as the ancients called them, in Earth signs for some 900 years. In Taurus it suggests that this will be the last opportunity to get the world economic structure sorted out in preparation for the next 200 years of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions in Air signs. So the coming months and 1999 are likely to see a good period of decay and doubt which will force the powers that be to totally engage with the creation of a New World Order as mooted in 1989. he good news that astrology can always bring is that no season lasts for ever. Following the current economic and leadership crisis, Saturn will move on to form the trine to Neptune in 2002. This should further encourage economic structures which honour both sides of the individual and collective equation, in readiness for a further testing of the thesis of 1989 at the triple opposition in 2006 and 2007. The sooner we honour the fact that we needs must honour all of the gods, the sooner the larger world will be able to discover life before death. The current generation of 1998/99 babies will be looking to the Secular Horoscopes of the present time to understand the work they have to do. Let us hope and work that, by the time they are in charge, they will be living in a world that is more aware of the deeper archetypal Realities. No doubt the generation of February 1997 will be ensuring that they do!
A T
Figure 9 45 Graphic Ephemeris January 1998 to June 1999 The thee instances of Saturn squaring Neptune are indicated. Note how Mars joins in on the second instance, on 1 November 1998
Books mentioned: Hymns to the Ancient Gods Michael Harding. Available from the Urania Trust, vide supra The Globalisation of Poverty - Impact of IMF and World Bank Reforms Michel Chossudovsky Third World Network 1997 ISBN 983-9747-23-1 Tables of Planetary Phenomena Neil F.Michelsen ACS Publications, San Diego ISBN 0-935127-08-9. For historical studies of the planetary cycles this is the essential text, giving detailed listings of the major planetary conjunctions from 501 BC - 2100 AD, an aspectarian of planetary phases 1700 - 2050 and much, much more. It includes colour mandalas of the dance of 96 different pairings of planets and asteroids.
Der Ausflug Michael Sowa 1989 Edition Inkognito Berlin

Apollon Issue One

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Apollon Issue One

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Apollon

The Journal of Psychological Astrology

The Sun-god And The Astrological Sun - Liz Greene

Issue 1 October 1998 6

Copyright: 1998 Centre for Psychological Astrology All rights reserved

page 4 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

The Sun-god and the Astrological Sun

Apollo the light-bringer

page 6 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollo the cosmocrator

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 7

Apollo the artist

page 8 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

page 10 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollo the prophet

Apollo the healer

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 11

When the Sun doesnt shine

page 12 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

The price to be paid

Astrodienst and Astro* Intelligence say

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 13

Creativity, Spontaneity, Independence:

page 16 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

From the Wrong Side a paradoxical approach to psychology

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 17

page 18 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 19

*grappling with, coming to terms with

page 20 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 21

page 22 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Samuel Weiser, Inc.

See our web site at http://www.weiserbooks.com

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 23

The Sun in the Tarot and the Horoscope

page 24 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 25

Whom doth the Grail serve?

page 26 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 27

Into the world - but out of it

page 28 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 29

page 30 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

Apollon Issue 1 October 1998 page 31

The Point in the Circle

Omphalos: The Sacred Centre

page 32 Apollon Issue 1 October 1998

The Centre for Psychological Astrology

October 4 Planetary Containments

October 18 Darby Costello The Moon & Transiting Outer Planets

CPA dip student yes/no

The CPA Press Order Form

Books from the CPA Press

THE ASTROLOGER, THE COUNSELLOR

Liz Greene & Juliet Sharman-Burke Juliet Sharman-Burke

...Should be not just recommended, but compulsory reading - AJ

THE FAMILY INHERITANCE Parental Images in the Horoscope

Bridging the Ideal and the Real

Erin Sullivan Darby Costello

I loved this book... I highly recommend it - TMA

THE ASTROLOGICAL MOON