At age 70, James Hillman, author and founder of archetypal psychology, finally got his Leo moment in the spotlight.
Oprah Winfrey invited him on her show to discuss The Soul’s Code. Her excitement was palpable–her copy of the book was full of handwritten notes in the margins. She told the audience her own “soul’s code” story from her childhood. She read this passage aloud:
We selected the body, the parents, the place and the circumstances that suited the soul. And that belonged to its necessity. This suggests that the circumstances, including my body and my parents whom I may curse, are my soul’s own choice. And I do not understand this because I have forgotten.
After the episode aired, she called him and said “We did it!” The book shot to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and was translated into 15 languages. Several celebrities, including Robert Redford and Andre Agassi, read the book. Hillman finally had security and recognition.
His son Laurence noticed, however, that the success upset Hillman on some level. The Soul’s Code was “the least psychological, the least James Hillman, the most how-to book of all of them (p. 246, The Life and Ideas of James Hillman: Volume 3: Soul in the World by Dick Russell). He got famous for being accessible, for a parenting book disguised as archetypal psychology, not for his fiercest ideas about becoming “psychological citizens” or transforming therapy into “cells of revolution.”
Those ideas–the ones that didn’t make him famous–feel urgent right now. Hillman insisted the consulting room should awaken people not just to their inner lives but to the political and social world they inhabit. He wanted therapy to help people notice what’s wrong and respond with soul, not just adapt to dysfunction.
“The destruction of nature, the decline of culture and the oppression of the poor are daily facts,” he wrote, “that require daily acts, neither enraged nor numbed, but engaged” (p. 639).
I love The Soul’s Code and the acorn theory it espouses, which affirms that we each have a unique calling that is present at birth and gradually unfolds throughout life as it faces challenges. However, under this Full Moon in Leo, I feel compelled to acknowledge that it’s not enough to ask “What’s my calling?” (Leo) “You also have to ask: “What forest am I planted in, and is it healthy enough for ANY acorns to thrive?” (Aquarius)
This reminds me of one of my favorite novels, The Overstory by Richard Powers, where trees are some of the main characters. The intricate way in which they communicate is described throughout:
We found that trees could communicate, over the air and through their roots. Common sense hooted us down. We found that trees take care of each other. Collective science dismissed the idea…A forest knows things. They wire themselves up underground. There are brains down there, ones our own brains aren’t shaped to see. Root plasticity, solving problems and making decisions. Fungal synapses…Link enough trees together, and a forest grows aware.
Hillman understood this. He drew on Jung’s idea that individuation isn’t about isolation–it’s about deepening our relationship with the world. As Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes, in a passage that hasn’t been far from my mind since I first read it last year:
We can explicate Jung’s idea of individuation as something that brings a self closer to the world, as giving no permission for us to retreat from the world, nor to go and hide, whether out in the cave or up in the ivory tower. I understood his inference: that people who are doing individuation work are so valuable, that their lives no longer belong to them alone. It ought be said, and often, that we literally owe some portion of our lives to tikkun olam, repair of the world soul. We literally owe some dedicated circuitry of the heart to the repair of the cultural milieu, each in our own way (Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Terror, Violence and the Impulse to Destroy).
Leo’s courage isn’t just about shining. It’s about shining the truth, even when the collective (Aquarius) isn’t ready to celebrate it. So here’s a question this Full Moon asks: What are you being called to offer that won’t make you popular–but might help tend the forest we’re all planted in?
P.S. Mars-Pluto and Reading Life Backwards:
With the recent Mars-Pluto conjunction in Aquarius, which kicked off a new Mars-Pluto two year cycle, there has been a lot of anxiety about what this brings. Last week I looked backwards instead and tracked the two-year Mars-Pluto cycle that began in February 2024 and just concluded.
What I found confirmed that the real gold wasn’t in predicting the future–it was in discovering that even under these supposedly difficult transits there were many beneficial things that happened that I had completely forgotten about. Yes, there were difficulties, too, especially during the opening square phase!
If you’d like to try this practice yourself, I created a simple and free tracking guide for the Mars-Pluto cycle that just concluded. Instead of white-knuckling through “scary” transits and worrying about the future, you can process the past and see the actual patterns of your life, which is always more nuanced and interesting than a forecast. It’s another way of tending the forest–understanding what actually helped you grow, not just what you feared might happen.
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