Philosophy – Page 3 – Student of Astrology

Revisiting the Outer Planets

Those of you who have been watching my astrology work unfold over time know that I have gone back and forth about using the modern outer planets, Uranus, Neptune, and especially dwarf planet Pluto. Since I put together my book of texts on The Classical Seven Planets I have been leaving them out in my personal work for about a year.

This year I have been giving my astrology clients the choice to include them or not, and 95 plus percent ask that they be used. I still only pay attention to them when they are either right on an angle, or are in tight hard aspect with a personal planet. Most of the time they are just not important, and just don’t refer to them very much.

Until I saw this situation. Continue reading “Revisiting the Outer Planets”

Spiritual Support Systems – Bhagavad Gita

Spiritual Support Systems – Bhagavad-Gita

This essay is part of a series. The first is a post on the psychological effects of the lockdowns, and it is followed by this posts on Stoicism and a brief post on Stoicism, victimhood and empowerment. I want to start here by recapping the purpose of the entire series.

The past year and a half, with the covid pandemic, lockdowns and unprecedented civil unrest, are enormously stressful for most people. We went into an emergency threat mode at the start of the panic, and for many if not most people we are still locked in emergency threat mode.

At some point I think we need to turn our attention from external threats, and start to deal with the emotional and spiritual effects of the sustained lockdowns on our psyches. The first post talked about that effect, and how we are dealing with a collective trauma and shock. I see it in my own life, and I am increasingly seeing it in the lives of the people I work with as astrology clients.

I think it is time to own responsibility for our interior spiritual and emotional well-being. That is a big part of what I try to do with my clients, and what I am wrestling with in my own life. Putting my life on hold until a return to normal that may never come is just not a satisfying and meaningful way to live.

There is an overall point to all of the spiritual systems I am covering in this series: To really be able to deal with the stress of sustained bad fortune, trauma and stress, just having some tricks or peppy sayings to put yourself in a better mood is not sufficient. You really need a way of looking at the world – a philosophy, a religion, a spiritual system – as an overall framework to make sense of your experience. Continue reading “Spiritual Support Systems – Bhagavad Gita”

Language, Honesty and Power

The name of Krishna is nondifferent from Krishna. Speaking the name Krishna makes Krishna present. Chant the name of Krishna and Krishna dances on your tongue.
– Sri Prabhupada

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
– Hebrews 4:12

And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light.
– Genesis 1:3

This essay on language ties together a lot of issues I have been thinking about for a long time. The immediate trigger that inspired me to put this together was a sentence I saw in an online comment, claiming that, “The English language was not created to tell the truth”.

I humbly disagree – not just about the English language, but about language in general.

Here are the points I wish to make in this essay.

There is a connection between language, truth, reality and power. Words point beyond themselves.
Astrology is one of many sacred languages. The symbols have power and embody living realities. The symbols point beyond themselves. Therefore we must be careful how we use them.
We have a sacred obligation to tell the truth. If we do not, it robs our words of any power, and is ultimately self-destructive.
You can tell the difference between true and false language, real and empty language.
If you are going to work with a sacred system like astrology you are well-advised to take a vow to speak the truth, and to be careful with how you use language.
Philosophies and movements that view language as an arbitrary construct to gain power are ultimately self-contradictory and self-defeating.
It is a very good idea to spend time considering the meaning of words, to define words carefully, and to look into the etymology of words you use.

Continue reading “Language, Honesty and Power”

Stoicism, Victimhood and Empowerment

This is a short sequel or postscript to my previous essay on Stoicism. In that essay I talked about the tools that the stoic system gives for dealing with difficult times. In this essay I want to talk about how Stoicism is a kind of natural antidote and corrective to a tendency in some political circles for people to view themselves primarily as victims of an unfair system or of other groups.

When you understand stoicism, it is obvious that people with such a victim mindset are giving their power away.

That is what I want to consider here. Continue reading “Stoicism, Victimhood and Empowerment”

Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism

In the previous post in this series about dealing with effects of the lockdowns, I looked at some of the psychological and spiritual effects of the lockdown measures on us – not covid, but the lockdowns. I think it is time we become aware of and own these psychological effects so that we can start to heal from them.

This post will be the first of several looking at what I am calling spiritual support systems – ways of looking at the world that give us mental and spiritual tools for dealing with bad fortune, or situations that are outside of our control.

In this essay we will look at Stoicism.

—
Stoicism is a school of philosophy that goes back to our Hellenistic and Roman heritage. It has been very influential, and its teachings have had a profound affect on what came after, including a formative influence on the young Christian tradition. Some of the writings of the early Church Fathers sound like they could have been taken straight out of a Stoic manual. It is a useful philosophy and set of psychological techniques for dealing with misfortune, or better, for the ups and downs of fortune.

The modern cliche of stoicism, as a hard and unfeeling philosophy that is all about gritting your teeth and bearing with pain and not allowing yourself any pleasure, is a misleading caricature. Done correctly, stoic techniques can help you maximize positive states of mind, including pleasure and good fortune, and minimize the effects of misfortune by taking control of your reaction to it.

I want to recommend some classic Stoic writers and texts that are well worth researching and learning from. Continue reading “Spiritual Support Systems – Stoicism”

Astrology and Politics: Drawing the Line

“In matters of truth the fact that you don’t want to publish something is – nine times out of ten – proof that you ought to publish it.” ~ G.K. Chesterton

This post is inevitable, and I have seen it coming for a long time. I’d really rather not publish this, but I think it important that I do.

I need to make clear where I stand on the issue of mixing astrology and politics – or, to be more precise, of astrology being taken over and forced to follow a political and social agenda. I think this will corrupt and ultimately destroy traditional astrology, and I won’t let that happen.

This post is where I draw the line. Continue reading “Astrology and Politics: Drawing the Line”

Dealing with Effects of the Lockdowns

Being an astrologer, paying attention to the issues that people bring to a reading can give me a sense of the sorts of issues that are common in our culture at this point in time.

Based on what I am seeing, I think it is time that we start to address the problems caused by the lockdowns and other measures being taken to deal with the covid pandemic.

Let me be very clear here: I am not making ANY statement about covid-19, or how dangerous it is, or what treatments or preventive measures do or do not work.

I want to look at the psychological and spiritual effects of the measures that our cultures have put in place to deal with the disease.

So how does it affect people, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, when you do these things?

Wearing masks and other facial coverings when around others.
Being around other people who are all masked.
Keeping outside of the range of touch. Essentially forbidding touch.
Avoiding visiting with people outside of your household.
Frequently washing, disinfecting, taking other measures to deal with an invisible threat.
Constantly testing to see if you have an illness you may not be able to detect.
Constantly monitoring disease statistics; focusing on that one subject.
Having news and other media that is constantly reminding you how horribly dangerous the situation is.
Shutting down “non-essential” businesses and gathering places.
Replacing face-to-face, in-person meetings and activities with online virtual connections.
Effectively shutting down churches. If you are Christian, shutting down communion, sharing the common bread and cup.

We have been so focused on the disease, that we have neglected to pay attention to the effects of what we are doing to ourselves, individually and as a culture, to deal with the disease.

And remember, the majority of us have been dealing with these measures for over a year now. It takes about a month to establish a new and permanent habit. That means the effects of the lockdown measures on us are now our regular routine, our way of life. They permanently affect how we think, how we feel, how we function.

From what I am experiencing myself, and seeing around me, the effects are severe, detrimental, and very stressful.

Continue reading “Dealing with Effects of the Lockdowns”

Dealing with Death

These thoughts were triggered by a Facebook post I saw, talking about seeing signs of upcoming death in astrology data. More importantly, the question arose as to how to appropriately talk with a client about death when it is a real possibility, or when the client knows it is likely.

I’ve already done some writing about dealing with suffering and death in my book on Saturn, and there will likely be some overlap in that writing with what I am saying here.

I want to sort this essay into a few separate issues:
– Can astrology data show indications of possible or likely death?
– How do we as astrologers talk with our clients about this?
– Why we as astrologers need to come to terms with death.

Continue reading “Dealing with Death”

Interview Video

This post is announcing a new video that I posted to Vimeo. I was interviewed by Kenneth Miller as part of the International Astrology Day event hosted by Kepler College on Saturday, March 20, 2021. Here is the link to the video – Astrology Day Interview.

This was fun – Kenneth is a good and flexible interviewer, and I got a chance to talk about my astrology background, describe my books, and talk about book projects I have in progress.

Mercury – As Above, So Below

On the Border Between Worlds

I am finishing up the first full draft of my book on the philosophy of astrology; the working title is, The Divine Dimension: The Spiritual Roots of Western Astrology. This is my attempt to go back to the roots of our western astrology in the Greek Platonist tradition, and think through the underlying philosophy and worldview.

There is a single core issue that is an underlying theme of our western philosophical tradition, reaching from the early Greek era, what we now refer to as the PreSocratics, all the way through to the world we live in today. The core issue is, the Mind/Matter dichotomy. Basically, we have a Mind in here and a world of Matter out there, and we need a way of thinking about how they connect.

In the Platonist worldview we are living in two worlds or dimensions at once, eternal and temporal. We access the eternal dimension by looking inward, within our minds, and we access the temporal, physical dimension by looking outward, sensing and perceiving the material world. Inner/mental and outer/physical really are two distinct dimensions of experience. Both are part of being human, and you can’t reduce either of them down to the other without leaving out a whole domain of experience. You can’t collapse inner experience down to an epiphenomenon or side effect of matter, and you can’t collapse outer sensory experience down to an effect of the inner, the Mind.

These are two dimensions of our full human experience; and they are related, they mirror each other, they are connected.

Platonism approaches the situation by making the eternal dimension primary and viewing the temporal world of matter as secondary and derived. Platonists view knowledge of the world as inherent in our minds and ultimately retrieved from within. The Aristotelian side of the Greek tradition starts in the other direction, with our deriving our knowledge of the world from outer experience, and abstracting from that to move to inner knowledge. They are trying to get at the connection from opposite directions, and both of them have valid points to make.

In this post I want to try looking at this from a somewhat different perspective, focusing on the role of the planet Mercury. Continue reading “Mercury – As Above, So Below”