Astrology, personality typology, and working with dreams and the I Ching can all lead to a dead end of passive introspection if we aren’t careful.
That’s not necessarily a fun thing for my introverted intuitive self to contemplate! But it must be done. After all, it’s immoral to focus on individuation and not pay it back, as Jung wrote in The Symbolic Life.
Or as James Hillman said, “You make soul by living life, not by retreating from the world into ‘inner work’ or beyond the world in spiritual disciplines and meditation.”
Currently the terrain we are navigating as a collective includes a dynamite-like Mars Uranus conjunction in Taurus, which perfects on Monday.
The Mars-Uranus archetype is the Rebel. Its themes include sudden urges for freedom and independence, recklessness, sudden breakthroughs, angry outbursts, and erratic behavior.
Unfortunately, here in the United States we already have one major Mars-Uranus event at the collective level, which is in the headlines all over the world.
Passively thinking about a transit like this, especially in regards to one’s own chart, can lead to anxiety and viewing the energies as a threat.
An alternative is to instead view this Mars-Uranus Rebel as an invited guest that comes “in the service of health and wholeness,” the same way dreams do, per Jeremy Taylor.
You could totally flip the script and actually have an influence on the Rebel (or any other archetype):
“Each time an individual overcomes fear and creatively embodies the Willing Sacrifice in his or her dreams and waking life, the archetypal energies themselves are influenced and helped to change and evolve. … Whether or not we can measure either aspect of this influence doesn’t matter; at its worst, this is a useful way to imagine the “unknowable,” and at best it is true.”
Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill by Jeremy Taylor
The language of the I Ching helps describe the type of situations we likely might face as we hang out with this Rebel: the polarity of Conflict and Holding Together.
For those of us in the United States, the type of culture in which this is happening is ESTJ, top-heavy in extraverted thinking, with extraverted feeling in the deepest recesses of its shadow.
“Beebe notes that extraverted feeling is oriented towards connecting with the emotions of others. When differentiated at a group level, it fosters ‘mutual trust and the harmonious working of groups’. Authentic empathy for the moral injury of identity groups other than one’s own is the necessary foundation for coordinated political action.”
Mark Hunziker and Peter Dunlap, Journal of Analytical Psychology, November 2021 issue
Fortunately, within the Conflict there is always the seed of Holding Together. We could have an influence on the Rebel archetype by bringing out our individual and collective extraverted thinking to help us Hold Together.
Then we can start to think beyond just my personality type, Mars-Uranus in my chart, my dream, my Conflict, to include our type, our Mars-Uranus experience, and seeing the collective elements in our dreams. This is how we become psychological citizens.
Mark Hunziker writes about how many psychological citizens engage in “Listening and empathy circles, ‘one-on-ones’ that invite activists to share their stories with one another. and many other practices.”
Jeremy Taylor wrote about the power of dream groups: “Working with dreams in groups helps us overcome the sense of isolation that we all feel from time to time, bringing us into more meaningful contact with one another. This renewal of community has an effect on the shape of society as a whole.”
The journey towards individuation is not merely an inward quest, but a call to engage with the world and its challenges, embracing both our inner and outer Rebels.
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