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According to the article in the New York Times last Sunday, the unraveling of Jung's psyche began in 1913, a period of time that coincides with the transit of Uranus over Jung's ascendant, the point of personal identity.

Uranus is strong in Jung's chart, since it forms a tight square to his Taurus Moon.  The Moon in the birthchart represents our emotional security, and in the fixed signs the emotional nature can be quite rigid and resist change to the breaking point.  The challenging square from Uranus, planet of sudden change and shock, to the Moon suggests an early shock to Jung's sense of emotional security and an unpredictable relationship with his mother.  In fact, Jung's mother spent a great deal of time alone, disconnected (Uranus) from the family and in contact with a variety of spirits and apparitions.  He later said that his concept with women was one of "innate reliability," something that is echoed here in the square of Uranus to the Moon.  He also likely felt abandoned by his mother with Pluto in conjunction to his Moon in the natal chart. 

Jung's study of psychology brought him into contact with Sigmund Freud, and the two had a close association for several years that ended in 1912 as Uranus made the first pass over his ascendant and opposing his Sun.  The Sun in the chart can represent one's relationship to the father, and Freud was a father figure of sorts to Jung.  Uranus transiting in opposition to the Sun likely created a rebellious (Uranus) desire to forge his own way and express his own ideas (Sun).

Jung's perilous descent into the dark land that straddles the conscious and subconscious between 1912 and 1917 has been called a "creative illness" by his biographers.  He retreated from public view, studying Gnostic writers and psychic phenomena.  He write, "It would be no exaggeration to all it a state of disorientation.  I felt totally suspended in mid-air."  (Memories, Carl Jung.)  This is a very apt description of the experience of a Uranus transit, in which everything we know and hold on to may be turned upside down as our soul and psyche attempts to reveal the truth that lies within us.  At this stage Jung, having rejected the paradigms of religion and psychoanalysis, was left without a theological leg to stand on and had to make his own way through the darkness.  

The transit of Uranus over Jung's ascendant set of a rebellion within him against his own identity (ascendant/Sun) but also set off the square to Neptune in his chart.  It's no wonder that his subconscious became filled with dreams and fantastic images as the collective subconscious (Neptune at the nadir of the chart) exploded under the Uranian influence.  

Jung's descent into creative madness culminated in December of 1913,  He had visions of falling into a hole in the earth in a shamanic experience that he later postulated was a sacrifice for the greater good (natal Sun square Neptune is the martyr or Christ figure).  At the time, transiting Jupiter was in an exact square to Jupiter in his chart which as we now know opposed Chiron exactly.  An opposition of Jupiter to Chiron in the natal chart suggests that the shamanic experience that Chiron provides facilitates the development of the construct of meaning for the individual (Jupiter).  There is a powerful inner connection to a deeper reality, and this can sometimes overcome the experience of material reality.  When Jupiter transited over this sensitive point, at the height of the Uranus cycle, Jung was liberated (Jupiter) from the boundaries of physical reality and freed to travel into the mysteries.

When we are in the middle of a transformational experience it can be so uncomfortable that we don't recognize its value.  Later on, we often look back and say "what an amazing time that was."  This is powerfully true for this experience of Jung's.  Jung's biographers have debated this period in his life for what is now nearly a century.  Some said that Jung was clairvoyant and predicted World War I.  Some say that Jung experienced temporary insanity.  Some say that Jung had a Christ complex and believed he was sacrificing himself for the good of humanity (again, Sun/Neptune).  

The astrological symbolism reveals something much more magical: the opening up of a soul to the shamanic experience that revealed the depths not only of the personal subconscious, but the transpersonal subconscious as well.  Without this soul journey Jung would likely never have been able to connect so deeply with the archetypes and symbols that formed the foundation of his work that viewed psychology as an alchemical process.  

On a personal level we can also imagine that this experience, which took him on such an incredible transpersonal voyage, also provided him with a healing crisis of his own that accelerated his inner work so that he could later set aside his own personal issues to explore the transpersonality of the psyche.  

During this period he wrote very little of a professional nature, but instead poured his visions and thoughts into 1330 pages of notebooks.  He included paintings using pigments that he himself produced and wrote in the style of the fourteenth century (Source:  The Wounded Jung, Northwestern University Press).  He  later put together 600 pages of these writings into the Red Book which was then jealously guarded by Jung's heirs after his death, as you can read in the Times article.  

Jung brilliantly utilized his descent into madness in order to transform the field of psychology forever.  This concept of the alchemy of personal transformation provides the foundation for the work that I and other transformational astrologers do in our client work.  Rather than look at an illness as a disease, whether mental or physical, we look to see what planetary dynamics are at work here and how they can be used for transformational purposes.  

We have Carl Jung, and his descent into the underworld of the subconscious and subsequent return, to thank for that. 

I did a reading for a brand new baby the other day.  I love doing consultations for parents of beings that have just entered the earth plane, because it's all about possibilities and choices and talents and skills.  Challenges too, of course, but when we understand the charts of children, parents, spouses, siblings - really anyone! - a new level of conscious awareness improves the way that we relate to each other.  

Anyway, this baby of course has the approaching conjunction of Jupiter to Chiron and Neptune. This triple conjunction has been building for quite some time and will culminate within a half a degree on May 26.  All children born at this time have this conjunction in their charts, and in fact all children born between around March 2008, when Chiron and Neptune first entered the orb of their conjunction, and around April of 2011 when they meet for the last time, will be the "Chiron Neptune" generation.

Neptune is the planet that drives us to fulfill our spiritual longing.  Every individual has in their nature a longing for an experience that will provide us with a connection to our inner Self.  For some of us this manifests in a desire for the perfect bowling score.  For some it is an experience of God in a Church.  For some it is a few beers when we get home from work, or losing ourself in a beautiful piece of music.  The experience is different - the motivation is the same.  

When we add the experience of Chiron, the Wounded Healer, it becomes necessary to process any psychological and emotional blocks in order to gain that Neptunian experience.  Chiron doesn't just invite us to enter the inner world of our abandoned psychic debris - it throws that stuff up in our face where we have to face it.  Our emotions can run wild, feeling out of control, as any old undigested memories or emotional angst surfaces so that it can be dealt with.  This process can be exhilarating if we surrender to it and treat it just like cleaning out the basement.  It's a painful process to go down there and see all of the crap that has accumulated, but a thrilling feeling to be rid of it once and for all.  The Chironic process helps to open the heart more and more fully, and in this process we gain greater wisdom and a phenomenal sense of peace.

The addition of Jupiter here is a two-edged sword.  On the one hand the conjunction of Jupiter to Neptune expands (Jupiter) the longing for spiritual redemption and renewal (Neptune) which can lead us to incredible experiences of spiritual advancement now.  On the other hand, Jupiter can lead to excesses of escapist behavior and flights of fantasy, both of which fall under the dark side of Neptune's domain.  

If this triple conjunction is triggering a planet in your own chart, you are likely experiencing a highly emotional state right now and some resistance to the surrender that is required now.  Letting go to the river of spiritual evolution isn't easy, but if you can stay in the canoe during this exciting whitewater ride of the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune, you will emerge having freed yourself and able to enter a higher level of awareness and conscious action. 

The generation that embodies this planetary combination will, I feel, be extremely sensitive and easily wounded.  But they will also possess the tools to process their wounds quickly and emerge as deeply human but also amazing spiritual beings. 

-- Chinese proverb

A post in Beth Owl's Daughter about Seasonal Effective Disorder started me thinking once again about the way our culture attempts to medicate all emotional reactions out of its citizens (and thank you Beth for that wonderful proverb!!).  She writes:

When I was many years younger, I used to be hit hard by what later came to be known as SAD - Seasonal Affective Disorder. As Autumn proceeded from its kaleidoscopic colors into rusts and browns, and finally into Winter's endless grays, my own spirits would slump accordingly. As the days grew darker, my moods followed along, bringing bouts of tears, withdrawal, and lethargy. By the time I crawled into late February, I would often be struggling with outright despair.

But, thankfully, that changed. Perhaps, it was in part that I fell in love with a man who truly revels in the cold time of year. And maybe as I got older, my hormonal changes helped. But the truth is that, long before I was perimenopausal, my Autumns and Winters were beginning to pass without loss of emotional equilibrium.

Was it just coincidence that this shift was in synch with the deepening of my Pagan spiritual practice? As I attuned myself to the seasons of the Earth, and embraced the cycles of life and death, growth and surrender, rather than dreading the darkening of the year, I learned to love it.

Don't get me wrong. ... I am well aware that for many people, it is a very painful and serious problem.

But I wonder if there could be any correlation between SAD and our culture's insistence that we ignore the natural waxing and waning of the light. Could winter depression be exacerbated by our refusal to allow ourselves, in the ways we might individually need to, to harmonize with the rhythms of the seasons?

Instead, I seek the beauty of the short days, I am grateful for the cold winds, and I embrace the silence. Nature Herself teaches us how to live in rhythm, and by following Her guidance, we might, in fact, be much less sad.

read more here...

This is not to say that periodic use of medication isn't helpful for people going through difficult times. But simply medicating ourselves because we're sad isn't going to help us get to the heart of the issue that is creating the sadness. Saturn cycles create depression and isolation, but the time spent alone in sadness that Saturn requires helps us to become stronger internally and better equipped to handle other difficult times. Pluto cycles can create depression at the loss of control we feel as our lives are turned upside down, but if we medicate ourselves we may miss the exhilaration of the regeneration that we are sure to experience on the other end.

The Astrology.com site has posted a series of articles by Michael on AstroShamanism.  The shamanic process is a core component of the work that I do with clients to help facilitate transformation, and this is where the modern and more psychospiritual styles of astrology differ from traditional astrology.   

Michael describes a shaman as "one who has attained some degree of spiritual realization and awareness--in particular awareness of the other worlds, the next life stage or planes."  When we observe our life from this perspective, handling the crises of our lives takes on a different perspective.

I particularly like the way Michael describes the shamanic process here:

Rich recommended a book to me years ago that really helped me in my own walkabout through the dark called The Sorcerer's Crossing: A Woman's Journey. The books of Carlos Casteneda are also useful on the shamanic journey. List here.  And here is the link to Michael's new book: Astrology of the Heart: Astro-Shamanism