This month, I would like to share with you part of the draft conclusion from my forth coming book on the Planetary Nodes of Jupiter Outwards, due to be published later this year – a section that I feel summarizes some of the more crucial elements of my work.
“I have shared aspects of my work that focuses on the outer planets as symbols of the transpersonal identity and the subtle energy field. From that perspective the archetype of Uranus and Aquarius that it rules correspond to the nature of the transpersonal memory and the nature of the mental body. It is this part of the energy field that corresponds to what I call soul memory. This term implies that we are born with already existing material prior to the crucial uterine, birth and developmental initiations without having to get into the complex metaphysics of reincarnation, the soul’s origins etc. The birth-chart is the ultimate symbol of this reality: it implies from the point of entry the material that the being is already carrying.
The transition of the nodes of Neptune into Leo-Aquarius in the birth of the modern era seems to correspond to me to the growing need of a psychologically mature society and therapeutic infrastructure (including astrology and many other healing modalities) to recognise the pre-existing embedded memory structures within the subtle (but very real) body, even prior to developmental material (even though that understanding remains crucial). From this perspective the developmental processes recreate what the soul memory is already carrying so that the individual can bear witness to their own greater truth. The deeper healing (Neptune) work that lies ahead is to re-integrate the soul memories (south node of Neptune in Aquarius) sufficiently to allow the individual to make their pure creative contribution to the world (north node of Neptune in Leo). The nature of unacknowledged cumulative trauma and challenging memories can undermine the contribution the individual can make and twist personal vision into an expression of narcissistic injury. Unacknowledged trauma can burden the psychic inheritance of being human so much that it distorts our relationship to the ground of being, removing us from the very source of our essential nature. This is the core ecological crisis of our time from an energetic vantage point.”
It is from this perspective that we can understand the significance of our personal healing journey as well as our endeavours to help our fellow beings. Even whilst in times of personal or collective struggle we might get tired or overwhelmed, or even feel like giving up, we can be aware that, at all times, our personal and professional healing work, even if incomplete, is meaningful.
Our astrological understanding, applied in service to our personal evolution and the evolution of others, can be a part of this meaningful project. The key here is to recognise the difference between a vision of astrology that imprisons people in a static definition of their potential and one that inspires them with that same potential, without ignoring the hardships within the same picture. What imprisons people is not a compassionate understanding of their life’s hardships, or even a probing analysis of their own part in some of their most challenging experiences, but instead an overly narrow interpretive lens or judgmental astrological orientation towards those challenges. Real people know that life can be hard. Real people know they can (and do) mess up. Real people who offer healing services to others become experts in how people pick themselves up and start again, just as much as they might hone their astrological skill set.
Life is full of complex problems that have no easy answers. The idea that astrology will provide answers to problems that have evaded political, economic, philosophical and psychological analysis for centuries is naïve. The lack of universal solution to life’s myriad complexity is behind the challenging insight laid down by Yeats in his famous lines from The Second Coming: “the best lack all conviction, while the worst/are full of passionate intensity.”
Astrology can add great nuance to our understanding of a human life. It contains codes that help liberate. I remember the strange joy of a Christian Lawyer when I showed him his chart, which he could not interpret, but could see the pattern around the 4th house echoing the impact of his mother’s depression on his life. He felt liberated from his own self-imposed judgments. Astrology can genuinely help people, when held within an overall transformational or healing orientation. The idea that we can solve the world’s problems through its lens, or indeed through any other single lens, is something one ought to be suspicious of. The complexity within astrology itself mirrors the complexity of life. It is both unavoidable and meaningful. The way forward is, as ever, to move on with as clear a heart and mind as possible. Trusting the significance of our personal worth and healing work. Trusting life even as we are unable to answer all of its complex riddles.