Astrology: a map of the Soul by Mark Jones MA. The birth chart is the business card of God Grandmother Bold. The Width of A Circle: Best of ways. That there be a law under the stars. For the galaxies drift Outward to enter a new universe. That there be, where we are, a law. And, seeing the mountain, the stream Defining the valley, the old sea, we say This Is the place. Robert Duncan. Since ancient times and in all the ancient hermetic divinatory and healing arts the notion of framing has been essential, what is the nature of the alchemical vessel, which sacred part of the earth will I read the song-line in, what lens to I view the world through, how wide is the circle? You might propose to take your own window, for an hour on a Friday afternoon (say around 2 o clock the time as I write this now) and you may set aside an hour in which to watch the world through this one particular window; will she still love me if the rain comes, will I travel if the swift flies east, and if the sun breaks through the clouds, what then? Such, seemingly arbitrary framing serves to consolidate the intuitions focus, to chose to find significance in this world around us, to chose to participate. I will not attack such a view, can we be sure that many philosophical, cosmological and divinatory systems did not have their rudimentary beginnings in such roots? Certainly though many still attack Astrology today for much the same reason that we might be a bit suspicious initiating divorce proceedings based on the movements of a willow tree in the wind one, particular, Friday afternoon. Astrology frames itself around one particular initiation: that of birth. Our birth or the birth of any person or event in the Cosmos, an initiation of monumental significance in the Astrological world-view, a re-enactment, in miniature, if you like, of the original birth from which all manifestation has proceeded forth from. Astrology finds that in the snap-shot of the heavens at the instant that you came into being that far from being cold, distant or impassive observers of your fate the heavens are indeed reflections, comrades and even instigators of that portion of reality that you will call your own. In fact one might say that in Astrology one finds the implications that the heavens are real and that in a sense they parent the new life on earth, that far from being just strange gasses and dust in the sky the planets are beings of a different order, another expression of life within the vast being (and intelligence) that we might name Cosmos. In a sense, in our deepest wrestling with the Angel Astrology we are forced into our own metaphysical whirlpool whether we like it or not, we are forced to decide the side of the living mystery of life in all realms of being or a more 2 dimensional worldview, we are forced to partake of the mystery or hang or heads (literally to not look up at the heavens) in denial. Before I begin to discuss the particular way that Astrology frames the birth moment in order to prepare ourselves for the feeling of this experience, of birth and its intense presence I would like to share an excerpt from the notes of Cecil Collins, one of the for-most mystical painters of the twentieth century: Walking in the street I feel arising from time an inscrutable sadness, from out of the stones a patience, what is this far calling longing? What are these flowing echoes? The beautiful hard skin of trees springing up into the sky, my father s hand parts of the leaves at the end of the wood, in the cool length of evening it is a voice speaking in the mystery sorrow of
the sinking fire of the sun, the day is mournful and wishes to cleanse itself in darkness. It is now as a child I feel the mystical sexual life of the elements, the hard stones and yielding plants, the lashing of water upon them, how they lift up their heads to consume the sunlight, how they live in the light of the rising moon with a stillness, with holy sex nerves drinking the subtle light of planetary love. These strange lights in the sky, might not just be distant echoes of our new found data quest (filing even all stellar phenomena) but may indeed have a life of their own, and a far from neutral one at that, they may actually care what is happening to us, how we feel, they may even be reaching out ( Often a star was waiting for you to notice it, Rilke in the first Duino Elegy). Now this is a very unusual stance for a young Astrologer to be taking, normally this is the kind of talk that distinguishes us as complete cranks and mystic Marks. Yet I am suggesting that Astrology, in its elevation of the first cause, the movement into existence, the birth point (of man or universe) seeks to honour life for its own vitality, seeks to allow life to contain its meaning inside its own impulse to be. Rather like eminent psychologist James Hillman s idea of the acorn of our youth containing the blueprint of the great oak of our maturity (in The Soul s Code) we allow life in its and our own outpouring to contain as a seed essence or idea our own future potential. In some of her recent talks, I am thinking of one I saw on tape at the Findhorn Foundation Caroline Myss the celebrated medical intuitive has spoken of an 8 th chakra: the first 3 deal with our primary personality functions, the next 4 with increasing states of integration and the final one, the 8 th is located somewhere above the head and hold 12 archetypal patterns from within the reactions of which is our own unique life purpose contained. Wow. This is the place of the pure map, the map of the Soul, contained in the birth act and celebrated in the natal chart as the seed form of the full flower of ourselves. Rather than emphasize the scientific roots of Astrology right now (although there are many and the new scientific paradigm is extremely compatible) I urge us as thoughtful and compassionate beings to own and honour the Soulfulness of what we do when we consider a birth chart, and how we honour the life-pulse, the stream of love that flows into the world from that moment. The Place of the Pure Map: Imagine a person who can teach us ways of tuning into the distant frequencies of the planets. He knows how to attune himself, just as if he were a stringed instrument, to the vibrational rays of the planets creating beautiful music through developing perfect pitch and an understanding of the intervals that create exquisite harmonies. He teaches this to those who come to him in distress because of the discord in their lives. He teaches the artistry of life lived in accord with the Heavens! Marsilio Ficino in a vision seen through the eyes of Noel Cobb, Archetypal Psychologist. Are we in tune, can we can catch a line or two from the song playing above our head, the symphony in the sky? If the scientists and technicians amongst us are already scared, and the conservative Jungians and therapists saying well Mark you know that we just read symbols I can but agree and say with Cecil Collins that this life is but the enjoyment of God by symbols, everything around us is a living symbolism of his origins from the profoundly divine mix of pleroma and void that some call god or goddess. The place of the pure map begins with just a circle, symbol of containment and unity of life. The birth chart is a symbolic representation of the heavenly bodies at the time of your birth. That the constellations do not actually look like that in deep space (as Stephen Fry is fond of laboriously pointing out) is something to discuss with the entities of deep space because from our point of view the picture with the circle is a living symbol of our archetypal inheritance, it is a message or siddhi of the 8 th chakra.
This circle, symbol of the unceasing tide of life, the endless cycles of time, the wholeness of the spirit, contains the 4 points of the basic Astrological mandala (a term coined by Jung for a basic fourfold structure of balanced unity), the first cross, the angles of the chart. Rather like a target cross hair placed over the circle or sight in which to give guidance to the trajectory of our being fired into life at just one particular moment: The pathway of the Sun: We can chart then the movement of the Sun to this circle, which represents its passage through the sky on that beautiful birthday that is the chart. Beginning at the east, the Ascendant, the sun rises and plots a path upwards in the sky until noon, the South or Midheaven of the chart from where it travels down to the West, the Descendant of the chart, where it sets. The North of chart, or the nadir is where the Sun is at midnight, relative to the earth. In this basic pathway of the Sun is the locus of the birth chart found, the angles of the horoscope its basic grounded into space-time reality, its manifestation point, or more accurately, axis. Already then through an awareness of the patterns of the planetary bodies a basic spatial awareness of the birth chart can be gained. A multitude of planets at the East or Ascendant suggest a rising spirit, a need to break free and express the unique destiny as an individual, seen more challengingly this might represent a certain protectiveness or core defensiveness about the identity. A big grouping at the South or the Midheaven of the chart suggests a need to go out into the world, the environment shaping the life, perhaps even taking over the life and leaving some-one rather rootless. An emphasis at the western emphasis or the Descendant suggests the importance of others and relationships in the life, perhaps even an over dependence upon others. A gathering at the North, the root r nadir of the chart suggests the importance of the early home-life and the unconscious, perhaps then the excessive importance of the home-life, an incapacity to leave it behind? Even as we begin to grasp the orientation of the chart through its angles like a mandala within the circle of life we can begin to ask pertinent questions that draw us in towards the meaning of the chart
ELEMENT YANG YIN CROSS RULER KEYWORDS ARIES 1 ST HOUSE TAURUS 2 ND HOUSE GEMINI 3 RD HOUSE CANCER 4 TH HOUSE LEO 5 TH HOUSE VIRGO 6 TH HOUSE LIBRA 7 TH HOUSE SCORPIO 8 TH HOUSE SAGITTARIUS 9 TH HOUSE CAPRICORN 10 TH HOUSE AQUARIUS 11 TH HOUSE PISCES 12 TH HOUSE FIRE YANG CARDINAL MARS BIRTH, PIONEER, INSTINCT. EARTH YIN FIXED VENUS NEED, WORTH, RESOURCES. AIR YANG MUTABLE MERCURY COMMUNICATION, SIBLINGS, MIND- SET. WATER YIN CARDINAL MOON MOTHER, HOME, SECURITY. FIRE YANG FIXED SUN CREATIVITY, CHILDREN, VANITY. EARTH YIN MUTABLE MERCURY CRISIS, HUMILITY, ANALYSIS, SERVICE. AIR YANG CARDINAL VENUS RELATIONSHIP, PARTNERSHIP. WATER YIN FIXED PLUTO (MARS) DEPTH, POWER, SEX AND DEATH, TABOO. FIRE YANG MUTABLE JUPITER NATURAL LAW, RELIGION, BELIEFS. EARTH YIN CARDINAL SATURN CONTROL, FATHER, STRUCTURE, AUTHORITY. AIR YANG FIXED URANUS (SATURN) WATER YIN MUTABLE NEPTUNE (JUPITER) DETACHMENT, LIBERATION, HUMANITY. PRIVACY, SACRIFICE, SURRENDER.
The Marriage of the Sun and Moon: The structure of this universe what does it symbolize? The death of knowledge of a particular self and resurrection into the innocence of eternal being, the infinite essence crucified by the astronomical clay of universes and existences. All creatures upon the objective skeleton of the universe create their own symbolic vision of the Eternal mystery. Cecil Collins. The alchemical operation of the Sun and the Moon takes many forms on many different levels. Stemming from the marriage of the Sun and the Moon the early Astrologers gained knowledge of the rulers of the signs (see table above). So from the Sun and Moon in Leo-Cancer they found Mercury next in Virgo and Gemini the adjacent signs and then Venus in Libra and Taurus and so on until Saturn it is only since the discovery of Uranus in that this took any alteration through the application of modern rulerships. In the natal horoscope this marriage can begin with our understanding of the aspect (square or trine etc) or phase (new or balsamic for example) between the Sun and Moon. Also on a more simple level simply from the signs and houses they occupy (see the table above to look at your own chart). A simple way of combining the qualities of the Sun and the Moon in a chart are to look at the sun as a key energy, a fire or fuel which embodies a quality present in the chart and the Moon as more of a need or security establishing behavior. Simply combining keywords in this way can begin the process of understanding the alchemical marriage in the chart. However whilst this process of carefully separating, understanding and then combining the energies of the Sun and the Moon can have humble beginnings its consequences will have deep reverberations throughout what we go on to explore.