Credo

What I Believe

This meditation is not on the specifics of astrology, but relates to the philosophy and values that underlay the practice of astrology. Since the philosophy we hold determines our value system, I think it important to take time to reflect and become conscious of the worldview that shapes our perceptions and experience.

This is my Credo, my standard of values, what I believe.

I believe in the goodness of the body, and the goodness of our being here as fallible, mortal animals, and that there is good in us precisely in the areas we call our weaknesses, our flaws, our limitations.

I distrust any religion that tells me I must distrust my body, or transcend my desires, to reach some pure spiritual area free of the flesh.

Yes, we are part of a larger spiritual community of beings that surrounds us and communicates with us constantly. However, when we negate or try to transcend or distance ourselves from the goodness of the body, we cut ourselves off from our spiritual family also.

I distrust any worldview that tells me my individual self is evil or flawed, and that I must sacrifice or negate my individual self for the good of a collective whole. I affirm my individuality, and any religion that tells me to deny that, negates the very reason for my being. I believe that there is indeed a Unity that binds us together, and we reach that unity precisely by affirming our individuality.

I distrust any psychology that tells me that part of my mind is dangerous and that I should venture there only under professional supervision. I do not believe that half of my mind is evil and that I am in danger if I open the door to my inner self and my inner community.

Astrology provides me a framework and a language that this larger spiritual community that surrounds and protects us can use to communicate with us. I believe that the Gods are alive, that they speak to us through the planets of astrology, and that they are eager to provide their communication and support. Our task as astrologers is to allow Them to speak, and we need a reverence, a receptivity, and a certain humble awe that, when we practice astrology, we are in the Presence of the Holy.

I believe in the Gods; I believe also in the Demons, for they are those old gods we have cut ourselves off from when we negated the goodness of the body and of earthly life.  We need those old Gods for their power, their support, their wisdom, to survive and grow through the coming years.

I believe that the Gods need their messengers, their prophets, those who will speak to the world in their behalf. We are called to wake up to the reality of the larger spiritual community, and our place in that community.

I believe that we are constantly surrounded by what some churches call the Company of Heaven, a community of intelligent and conscious beings that constantly speak to us. Our minds are not ours alone, for they open within to a larger communal reality, and I think that the Gods speak to us through the thoughts, ideas and emotions that move through our consciousness.

We are guided, we are supported, and there is a core of our consciousness which is eternal. Nothing in the universe can negate that. We are always part of that larger community of spirit, and we have a special part to play by being here in the body.

If I have a spiritual path, it is one that accepts and affirms all of who I am, including all my flaws, my weaknesses, my lusts, my errors. I accept and affirm the goodness of all of who I am. To practice that respect towards myself, I always try to accept and respect all people I interact with. We are all part of the same holy family, and we can respect and love others only as we accept, respect and love ourselves.

Even though astrology has a common language, there is a sense that each person embodies their own point of view, their own chart. So each person’s astrology is unique, and we have multiple ways of practicing it to allow each astrologer a way to embody their own voice. However, we must equally offer each person we read for the space and reverence to allow their particular charts, their particular realities, their particular expression of the Gods, to emerge in their own form, regardless of our own opinions.

So our standard of values must include total reverence for all other people’s worldviews and standards of values, and for how they choose to embody that.

I believe that the Gods of the planets, and the reality that they stand for, are larger than we are, and that their greater reality contains all of our experience, internal and external. There is a sense that we contain the planets and they are parts of us. However, it is equally true that their world contains and controls ours, and that we are called to be conscious of, and cooperate with, that larger world.  Our minds are open on the inside, so we are surrounded inside and out.  We are never, ever alone.

We each have our own unique, precious and irreplaceable place in this larger community, and our job is to embody it as completely as we can. We are called upon simply to be ourselves, and I think that calling is the hardest spiritual path there is, and the most valuable.

I respect my own holiness, and equally I respect yours. May the Gods go with you.

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I welcome your thoughts and comments here.