Astrology lessons Archives - Astrological Musings

Wednesday October 28, 2009

Musings on planetary transits and Ten Rules

by Lynn Hayes

Note: "transits" are the passing of planets in the sky to planets in our birthchart. The geometric angles that planets make to either other describe the nature of their interaction. There are harmonious transits, which bring ease and opportunities; there are also challenging aspects, which can bring discomfort but motivate us to change areas of our life that aren't working. For more information see this article on my website.

Everyone experiences planetary transits differently, and that's why what we call "cookbook" interpretations, while helpful, can only go so far. Depending on where we are in our life and in our soul's evolution, we can experience planetary cycles on a physical or reactive level, on an emotional or instinctive level, or on a spiritual and integrative level.

When I was new in the astro biz, I had just completed my first Saturn return. I have an extremely difficult chart, and any time a planet moved it bumped into something in my chart and created stress for me. In the readings I did for others, I assumed that the challenging cycles would create similar stress for them. That did not always occur, and I assumed it was my faulty prediction. But I came to see that while some people do become rather stuck in a particular place, others more through challenges more easily and as we get older this difference can become more pronounced.

Some of my greatest teachers have been my elderly clients who, on a path of transformation their entire lives, have become more and more free as they integrated the difficulties in their chart. And as I've matured myself I've come to see this in my own life; a Saturn transit does not now hold the same fear that it held for me twenty years ago. Saturn is getting ready to hit my Mars after a two-year visit of Pluto on my Mars, and I'm ready to get down to business. I often have clients call me who are getting ready to go through their second Saturn return and they are fearful because the first one was so difficult but the second Saturn return is nearly always easier than the first.

If we resist the lessons of the planets, though, and fail to integrate those energies into our life (for example, in the case of Saturn if we flee from responsibility and shirk our duties) these transits will be more difficult. There is a certain amount of planetary alchemy that we can create through our own intention, but any lessons that need to be learned will still come about.

We can't solve every planetary problem with planetary alchemy, though. A couple of years ago Saturn was about to transit my Leo Moon/Pluto conjunction. My relationship with my mother has always been treacherous, and though it has greatly improved since she moved to North Carolina about eight years ago I didn't want to take any chances, so I told her that while Saturn was on my Moon I thought it was best if we didn't see each other for a few weeks. She agreed and I prepared to hunker down for my Saturn transit, journaling and working hard. But then she found a tumor on her dog and I ended up having to take her to the Vet hospital and we ended up in a raging battle. So Saturn got me after all, but we did work through it eventually and ended up in a better place.

Planetary cycles are not to be feared; each planet has its own job and its own lesson plan for us and will only create challenges where we are weak and need to develop inner strength and resilience. Approaching a transit with trust and openness will help us to get the most out of the experience.

I visited a friend yesterday and on her computer she had this list of Ten Rules for being Human. I love this list and it's relevant to this discussion, so I share it with you:

Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it's yours to keep for the entire period.

2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, "life."

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The "failed" experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately "work."

4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end. There's no part of life that doesn't contain its lessons. If you're alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.

6. "There" is no better a place than "here." When your "there" has become a "here", you will simply obtain another "there" that will again look better than "here."

7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life's questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this at birth.

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Filed Under: astrology, planetary cycles, Saturn return

posted by Lynn Hayes @ 7:55am Permalink email icon

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Tuesday October 6, 2009

Categories: Astrology lessons, Celebrities

More on Letterman's birthchart and what is rectification?

by Lynn Hayes

The other day I wrote on Dave Letterman's chart as it affects his situation at the moment, embroiled in a blackmail scheme and needing to make major apologies to his wife and staff. My anonymous commenter Chiron questioned the birth time of 6 am which has been put forth by the wonderful people at Astrodatabank which is now posted on astro.com and is listed with a Rodden rating of A.

Rectification is the art, or fantasy depending on how you look at it, of assigning a time of birth to a person where no birth time is known, using the astrological correlations with certain events in a person's life.

Rectification is more reliable when we have a smaller time range, for example, if I know that someone was born in the afternoon I can generally narrow down the time using rectification methods. But if we have no birth time, such as in the case of a celebrity, and we rectify based on what we THINK we know about that celebrity, we are not doing ourselves or the field of astrology any favors.

The example of what happened with Susan Boyle's birthchart is a good one. Susan Boyle, as you may recall, exploded into public view overnight. Nothing was known about her, but when a birth time was found astrologers all over the world began publishing what we thought were extremely accurate portrayals of her birthchart using this birth time. Unfortunately for us, that birth time turned out to be incorrect and the correct birth time did not appear to be so accurate based on what we assumed we knew about Susan Boyle. (You can read more about that drama here.)

That said, the 6 am time for Letterman comes from a staffer and from his biography so it is reasonably reliable although when I see a rounded-off time I am always somewhat skeptical. Still, this time does set up a chart that appears to be accurate when we look at certain planetary transits to the angles (the angles are the ascendant and midheaven, and they are dependent upon the time of birth).

For example, in January of 2000 David Letterman was rushed to the hospital for quintuple bypass surgery. At the time, his progressed Midheaven was exactly square to his progressed Sun within minutes. The Sun, either in the birthchart or by progression, is nearly always implicated in diseases of the heart and aspects from the progressed Midheaven often indicate a major change in a person's life. The Midheaven also in some cases represents the father, and Letterman's father died of a heart attack so this event certainly would have been a major turning point for him.

The timeline of the current extortion attempt is also reflected in the chart provided by Astrodatabank with the 6 am birthtime. Letterman said Thursday night that three weeks before he was approached by the blackmailer. At the time, transiting Mars (aggression) was conjunct his progressed ascendant (his public persona) and transiting Mercury (messages) was opposite Mars (war and defense) in his natal chart. Any one of these events could have brought about an event of aggression, but the combination of the two would have accelerated the drama of the event.

Shortly thereafter, on September 20, transiting Mars made a challenging square to his progressed Moon, threatening his security and that of his family (Moon) but at the same time, transiting Chiron (wounding and healing) was in a harmonious trine to his Sun (Self), facilitating his desire to work through the problem rather than allow it to bury him in disgrace.

Mars has been very active throughout the period from September 14th to the present, activating Letterman's chart and energizing him for the conflict to come. But what clinches the deal for me is that on October 1st when Letterman made the announcement, transiting Mars (conflict) sat right on the Nadir of the chart, opposite the Midheaven which is the point at which we project ourselves into the public arena. The Nadir/Midheaven polarity requires that we balance our inner world (Nadir) with the outer world of our profession (Midheaven), and in Letterman's announcement he was seeking that balance in a very public way.

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Filed Under: David Letterman astrology, David Letterman blackmail, Mars opposite Midheaven, progressed chart, rectification

posted by Lynn Hayes @ 7:43am Permalink email icon

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Monday September 21, 2009

Categories: Astrology lessons

The astrology of Carl Jung and his Red Book: Part One

by Lynn Hayes

A secret book written by Carl Jung nearly one hundred years ago will be released next month according to the New York Times. Known as the "Red Book," it was jealously guarded by Jung's descendants until it was recently found in a bank vault and negotiations with the Jung family ultimately permitted its publication.

The work of Carl Jung transformed the field of modern psychology by incorporating the concept of archetypes and synchronicity into the mystery of the workings of the psyche. The Jungian process involves delving into our dreams and the symbols that weave a web linking the conscious and the subconscious. In doing so, we are able to venture on a path of self-discovery and facilitate the process of what Jung called "individuation" in which lost parts of ourselves are recaptured.

Jung's awareness of the synchronicities in life incorporated the use of dreams, ancient symbols and archetypes, alchemical symbolism, and astrology. He wrote:

"The collective unconscious appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious. We can see this most clearly if we look at the heavenly constellations, whose originally chaotic forms are organized through the projection of images. This explains the influence of the stars as asserted by astrologers. These influences are nothing but unconscious instrospective perceptions of the collective unconscious."

from Jung's lecture "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious," Collected Works.

In 1913 Jung "found his psyche starting to teeter and slide, until finally he was dumped into what would become a life-altering crisis." He began experiencing visions and hearing voices, and in what he later called a confrontation with the unconscious he used the experience to attempt to tear down the wall between his rational self and his psyche. "He found himself in a liminal place, as full of creative abundance as it was of potential ruin, believing it to be the same borderlands traveled by both lunatics and great artists." Quotations from the New York Times article.

Carl Jung's birthchart reveals his extraordinary connection to the archetypes of the unconscious. His Sun was in the sign of Leo, reflecting the ultimate need for self-expression and self-understanding. His Sun was angular, sitting right on the cusp of the seventh house of partnership (or Descendant), suggesting that he defined himself through the Other. His Leo Sun was therefore exactly opposed to his Aquarius ascendant which requires the transcendence of the Self into an experience of the Collective.

With Aquarius on the ascendant, Jung's chart was ruled by both Saturn (the traditional ruler) and Uranus (the modern ruler). This is a complex combination because those two planets are so different, and it gives the Aquarian nature a double-edged sword. On the one hand there is a need for order and discipline with Aquarius under Saturn, but the Uranian influence gives Aquarius its love for the unconventional and the embrace of the collective. With the Leo Sun exactly opposite the Aquarius ascendant Jung would have been torn between the individuation, as he put it, of his Selfhood (Leo), and the sublimation of individual consciousness into the mythology and symbology of the collective (Aquarius).

Angular planets are more significant in the birthchart, and Jung's Sun was angular because it sat right on the angle called the descendant at the seventh house. His sun formed an exact square to Neptune, the planet of dreams and the subconscious, fantasy and illusion. Neptune was also angular, sitting right at the cusp of the fourth house of home and inner life, the point that we call the Nadir or the Imum Coeli. Neptune at this point brings an intimate connection with the our ancestral past that transcends the boundaries of ordinary reality. Any planet found at the Nadir of the chart affects our inner world and our very sense of being incarnated in a body, and Neptune at this point suggests a tenuous anchor between body and spirit. Neptune, like the Sun, formed a square to Jung's ascendant, which exacerbated the thinness of the veil between Jung's conscious Self and the subconscious and transcendent (Neptune).

The square from Neptune to the Sun has been a topic of great debate over the past couple of years because we find this aspect in the chart of President Obama. Because Neptune has a tendency to blur boundaries and confuse the issue, when it forms a challenging aspect like the square to the Sun, which represents the development of the Self and the Ego, there is a challenge to the formation of that sense of individuality. We already see that with the Sun sitting on the descendant, the point of the Other, Jung has a tendency to lose himself. The square from Neptune exacerbates this.

At the time Jung descended into his journey of darkness, transiting Uranus was crossing the ascendant of his chart and setting off this whole dynamic that challenged his Selfhood. I'll cover this in Part II tomorrow.

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posted by Lynn Hayes @ 6:49am Permalink email icon

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Tuesday July 28, 2009

Categories: Astrology lessons

How to interpret the opposition of Saturn and Uranus

by Lynn Hayes

Marco, a new reader, writes: " I was looking for more information re: the saturn/uranus opposition and found you. However, what I was seeking was a more specific study of the impact of this phenomenon as it comes in contact (particularly through opposition/conjunction) with major planets in an individual chart. What is the impact of this duality when it squeezes native Jupiter, say, in its axis? Hope you'll take up the challenge for us."

When I began studying astrology and doing charts, one of my bibles was Sakoian and Acker's The Astrologer's Handbook. This is, in my opinion, one of the best and most comprehensive "cookbooks" for astrological aspects in the chart. My bible for looking at planetary transits was and still is Rob Hand's Planets in Transit,a masterwork of cookbook interpretations for every planet (Chiron is not included, this book was published the year before Chiron's discovery). I still learn something when I read an interpretation from Rob's book. An online cookbook that I find has excellent interpretations is the database on the Astrology Weekly website

An astrology "cookbook" is a compendium of explanations for any individual astrological phenomenon. For example, when the Sun conjuncts the Moon in the natal chart, taken by itself, denotes someone whose conscious mind and sense of Self (Sun) is fused with the emotional nature and sensitive side of the individual (Moon), but it can be difficult for the individual to gain perspective over their life because their perception is colored so greatly by their emotions. How we interpret this depends a great deal on the rest of the chart, and whether the Sun or the Moon is stronger. If the Sun is stronger, (say with the Sun and Moon in fire signs), this person will be focused more on individuation. If the Moon is stronger (say the Sun/Moon conjunction is in Cancer), the focus will be more on integrating the emotions.

The problem with cookbooks is that while they are excellent for beginners to learn some of the ways that the planets interact with each other, the problem is that this single interpretation only tells part of the story and depending on the chart, it may be a very small part of the story. This is why computerized astrology reports can only go so far. Let's take that Sun/Moon conjunction, but let's put them in the airy sign of Aquarius, where there is a more rational approach to the emotions and to life in general. The picture now is of an individual who is more remote by nature which gives them a greater sense of perspective from their emotions than they would be with the Sun and Moon in watery Pisces, which seeks to lose itself in the realm of emotions and transcendence. Add to this Aquarian Sun/Moon conjunction a square from Mars in Scorpio, and you get a person whose assertiveness (Mars) becomes very emotional and creates a conflict between the intensity of their passions (Scorpio Mars) and their desire for a more transpersonal experience (Sun/Moon in Aquarius).

Obviously, this kind of depth of interpretation is extremely complicated and takes years to master. But in the long run, learning to really understand the dynamics of the chart and how they operate and THEN put them together, will better serve the astrology student's ability to accurately interpret a birthchart.

I'm not saying toss out the cookbooks and astrology reports because they're a good place to start. But consider them like training wheels, and remove them when you're ready to dive deep.

So to answer Marco's question about how the Saturn/Uranus opposition will affect a person when it squares Jupiter in their chart, the answer is, it all depends. Generally, Saturn creates contraction and restriction, and Uranus creates a rebellious desire for change. The opposition requires that we find a balance between the two. Jupiter desires freedom, so the Uranian influence will exacerbate that need for freedom, and Saturn will create pressures to limit the expansion. Jupiter in this example will be in one of the mutable signs where it tends to have a more passive application.

In the chart of someone with Sagittarius rising and a Leo Sun/Moon conjunction, say, which is a more fiery chart that seeks independence and expression of Self, that Saturn influence will likely feel uncomfortable and the battle between change and stasis will be harder to keep in balance. But if this individual's Jupiter is in Virgo, where their success and faith (Jupiter) comes through the details of life in a cautious manner (Virgo), that will improve their ability to optimize this transit. If Jupiter is in Sagittarius, however, it will likely be a struggle.

Put that same transit in the chart of a Virgo with Saturn trine the Sun, with that Virgo Jupiter and you have someone who will find new ways (Uranus) to apply a disciplined approach (Saturn) to the matters of their life. If this person's Jupiter is in Sag, though, there is already a conflict inherent in the chart between the longing for freedom of the Sag Jupiter with the Virgo need for caution and adherence to details.

So really, it all depends! This is why I love to do celebrity profiles. It gives me an opportunity to showcase how astrological interpretation is accomplished, and hopefully add some insight for my readers. If people are interested, we may want to highlight charts of actual readers for this discussion.

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Filed Under: astrological interpretation, cookbook astrology, saturn uranus opposition

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Tuesday July 14, 2009

Categories: Astrology lessons

A history of the Sabian Symbols

by Lynn Hayes

The Sabian Symbols were originally conceptualized in a partnership between astrologer Marc Edmund Jones and spiritual medium Elsie Wheeler in the early part of the 20th century, and published in a book by Jones called The Sabian Symbols in Astrology. Channeled by Ms. Wheeler, there is one symbol for every degree of the zodiac, from the first degree of Aries to the 30th degree of Pisces. Jones was a Theosophist and therefore well acquainted with the concept of channeling Ascended Masters and the Babylonian Brotherhood.

According to Diana Roche, Marc Jones was also influenced by the symbolic astrological degrees of a Welsh seer named John Thomas (called Charubel) which were "obtained psychically for the basic purpose of helping him rectify the ascendents [sic] of horoscopes."

Astrologer Lynda Hill, a noted modern expert on the Sabian Symbols, writes that the symbols were called "Sabian" because of the connection that Jones felt to the "ancient mind matrix" of ancient Mesopotamia and that the Sabians were ancient alchemists. However, the website for the Sabian Assembly, the group started by Jones back in 1923, says:

The Sabian Assembly has been in continuous formal existence since October 17, 1923. Selection of the term, "Sabian," formally adopted in January, 1928, proved fortuitous on a number of counts. "The students themselves picked the word Sabian, which was lucky because it afterward turned out that the Sabians were a Mohammedan group, and nobody knew just what they were. It is not a historically legitimate word for what we do, but it's a good substitute, and it did represent people who were interested in what was then astrology. Later Jones would derive the word from the Hebrew phrase "Yahweh Sabaoth" or Lord of Hosts, referring to the Hosts as the potentialities or basis of all study in the Sabian work and calling it a convenient term for the pre-Biblical Mesopotamian mysteries "in lieu of the much abused terms Chaldean and Magian." Significantly, the Koran entitles Sabians, Christians and Jews to toleration.

The Sabians were indeed a religious group spanning many centuries in the area who appear to have been connected to the early Hebrews and possibly therefore to ancient mystical practices. WIkipedia reports that "[a]fter the conquests of Alexander, Harran came to be a center of intellectual and religious activity, which evolved into a philosophical tradition centered on Hermes Trismegistus." Hermes Trismegistus is widely believed to be an Atlantean survivor and is also associated with the god Thoth. This would have occurred around 300-350 b.c.e. and could not therefore have taken place in ancient Babylonia.

In any case, Dane Rudhyar, the father of modern astrology, popularized the Sabian Symbols in several of his books including his early work The Astrology of Personality in 1936. Rudhyar conceptualized the Symbols as an Oracle, such as the I Ching, which can stand alone outside of the astrological framework. Gavin Kent McClung writes on the wonderful Khaldea site devoted to Rudhyar's vast body of work:

The concept of the Sabian symbols as an "astro-poetic" tool of interpretation or inspiration strikes like lightning into the heart of a subject that some consider lost in the darkness of intellectual confusion. In the literature of all ages, we see inexplicably powerful images used to convey messages of great scope and power, through words of a forcefulness that is entirely out of proportion to their everyday usage. Here is a mystery with which one must inevitably contend, in order to contemplate the deeper meaning of astrology. Poets have known about this dynamic source of human response for many ages, from the modern school of the Imagists to the European Romantics, from the writers of brilliant Japanese haiku to the magical bardic singers of the Druidic age, and beyond.

The Sabian Symbols, then, are not so much tools for astrological interpretation of the birthchart as they are a synchronistic medium for gleaning new insight into a situation or motivation. There is a synchronistic magic to all divination tools: the I Ching, the Tarot, Runes, pendulums, or the Sabian Symbols - all tap into the deep subconscious mind to bring out information that we already know but of which we have not yet become aware.

The signs of the zodiac change every 30 days, and there is a brief period while the Sun passes from one sign to another that is known as the "cusp." Some people believe that individuals born several days before or...

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