This week has a pull between two things–being fully, unmistakably yourself, and wanting to belong.
The Sun is currently in Leo and there is a Full Moon in Aquarius this week. This Leo-Aquarius polarity is one that Jung himself lived, with his Aquarius rising sign and Leo Sun sign. Jung wanted to be accepted by the medical community and not dismissed as a mystic. He also frequently exhorted us to distinguish ourselves from the collective, yet remain connected to the human whole.
Jung’s moon sign was Taurus, which sits as a tense square between Aquarius and Leo. I was reminded of this Taurus moon when doing a tarot spread on Jung’s birthday, asking what he would like us to know about the Leo-Aquarius polarity. Three of the seven cards were pentacles, which are associated with the earth element and with the sensation function in typology. The birthday message from this spread was clear: The real genius of the Leo-Aquarius polarity is to use the sharp clarity of the mind to build a real-world vessel so that the mysteries of the soul have a safe and grounded place to reside.
Jung’s Taurus Moon is in the private 4th house of home, property, ancestors and I can’t help but recall how he had Bollingen Tower built on his property and retreated to it for several months each year. From a typology perspective, this is similar to someone with strong intuition working to incorporate their weak sensation function.
This is the typology work Jungian analyst Ken James calls our “assignment”; not fixing what’s broken but tending what’s undeveloped.
For Jung, the path to maturity isn’t about choosing one side of the polarity over the other, but about integrating the two: becoming the unique individual (Leo) in order to bring something meaningful back to the group (Aquarius). As Jung observed, “Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to oneself.”
What is the “tower” you are building—the real physical thing that gives your inner world a place to live?
________
Interested in an Astrology Consultation? Book a session here.
Enjoyed this post? Sign up for my monthly newsletter, Reading in Depth, for a dedicated monthly dose of depth psychology essays, reading recommendations, and timeless wisdom sent straight to your inbox.
In depth,
Anita Ashland
AnitaAshland.com
