Journal

Letting Death Back In

Modern astrology, like much of our modern culture in general, does not welcome open talk about death. It is sometimes even taboo to use the word.

Never mention death when delineating a chart – some astrologers consider that immoral to mention – obscene might be a better word.

Always say something positive!

Death is a strong word, and a strong, emotionally charged topic, and yes we need to proceed with care and concern when we discuss it.

But – leave out talking about death – and you are excluding people who are dealing with, or have dealt with, the death of a loved one.

There is a pain in their heart they are not allowed to talk about, which adds a sense of isolation and even uncleanness to the hurt.

In earlier posts in this journal – for instance, this post on my two saturn returns – I mentioned that my wife died of cancer in November 2009, so I know this hurt and isolation firsthand.

I need to talk about Death here, out in the open.

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Second Saturn Return and the Velveteen Rabbit

I just had my Solar Return last month; I turned 63. I am just starting to seriously move into the part of my life where I increasingly deal with the reality of aging, decline, and eventual death.

This is a post-second-Saturn-Return kind of process.

Our youth-oriented culture has very few or no good role models for navigating this part of life well. Too often aging is a dirty secret that is denied, kept hidden or unspoken for as long as possible. Old people become increasingly invisible – I can see and feel that already. And death… people don’t die anymore, they make their transition, or go home, reunite with God or the Soul – anything to avoid admitting the stark reality of the cold, dead body lying there in the bed.

I think I found a useful metaphor for a graceful aging and death. It is from a children’s book called, The Velveteen Rabbit.

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Multi-Cultural Astrology

I grew up in New York City, in a kind of run-down, lower middle class neighborhood. From the time I could be outside and relating to other kids, I was surrounded by people with different cultural backgrounds – German, Mexican, Irish, Italian, Chinese, and some others I didn’t know how to pronounce. We had different values, different religions, different family models, so part of our job as kids was to figure out a way to find common ground despite those differences.

I grew up surrounded by multiple models of reality interacting together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes not.

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Opposed and Embracing

Take an opposition aspect.  It relates to the symbolism of the number two, so it is complementary pairs, it is partners – but it is also adversaries, opponents. It can be experienced as a split, or as a dance.

A lot of the purpose of this Site, and of a book I’m working on,  will be to look at pairs of opposites that we have set in antagonism to each other, and find a way to include them as part of a larger complementary whole.

Here I want to look at a pair of opposites, a split, that many, many creative people in our culture go through – the experience of being an Outsider, someone outside the pale or unwelcome in society, and hence in opposition tension over against it.

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A Multi Map Reality

I’m in the process of writing a book on traditional natal astrology, and I was fininshing up a chapter which was a lengthy analysis of a single natal chart, using an outline I drew up.

I use the Whole Sign house system, which is probably the oldest house system extant in the West, going back to the Hellenistic era.

It went well, and as I approached the end of the chapter I saw that the interpretation was accurate, powerful, specific, grounded, detailed – and incomplete.

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That’s not what Malefic means

I am in the middle of reading Stephen Arroyo’s excellent book, Astrology, Karma and Transformation.

Here is the opening sentence of the chapter on Saturn, which starts on page 71.

“Until recent years, the planet Saturn was usually referred to in most astrological books as a “malefic” influence, a dimension of experience that most people would rather not face but which merely had to be endured for no positive purpose whatsoever.”

That is all well and good, except for one minor problem:

That is not what “malefic” means!

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Ignoring Limits

Passing Barriers

Some modern astrology looks at the era since the discovery of the outer planets and asteroids, as being a time of transcending previous limits and finding new areas of experience.

So, to evolve you are suppost to “get past” Saturn’s limits and fears, to find your real creativity and spirituality. Uranus is somehow more ‘evolved’ than Saturn is – or, at least often-selfish Uranus surely thinks so.

I think this attitude is a big reason why human culture is in such a dangerous situation today.

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Modern and Traditional Re-Converge

I want to talk about my journey through different ways of doing astrology, because I think it parallels some of where astrology may fruitfully go in the future.

Modern or psychological astrology was born partly as a reaction against an older, fate-based approach in which the planets and stars are forces outside of us, and astrology tells of us of the events that happen to us largely outside of our control.

That view has its limitations.

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Two Saturn Returns

A few minutes ago, Saturn moved from Libra into Scorpio. This marks the official end of my second Saturn return.

In Hellenistic astrology, the Saturn return is measured as the entire time the planet transits its natal sign, and not just the exact degree aspect. I find that to be a very useful interpretive principle.

The parallels between the two returns were marked, and quite eerie.

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