The art of letting things happen

The art of letting things happen

The intersection of personality type and astrology always interests me (typestrology, if you will). So I was intrigued to discover that Dane Rudhyar describes the 12 zodiacal types in his book An Astrological Triptych.

He posits that we have a dominant zodiacal type comparable to the Jungian psychological types.

Our type has both a creative function and a basic need. He says spirit brings us a gift that is meant to “fill the emptiness” produced by the one-sidedness of our type.

Dane Rudhyar describes the one-sidedness of each of the 12 signs and says curious and eager Gemini needs to learn “the art of letting things happen. He must learn to pause and wait. He must learn to understand first, to act afterward (p. 22).”

Failure to do so can lead to what Jung calls a “cramp in the conscious,” which results from too much mental activity.

Again I think of the 8, 9, and 10 of Swords cards of the tarot that are associated with Gemini, as I wrote about in my last post.

Those images speak to the need to wait, which is contrary to Gemini’s nature, and the chrysalis stage before transformation.

Jupiter, the planet of wisdom, is still in Gemini until July. Jupiter rules Sagittarius, Gemini’s opposite sign. In Rudhyar’s advice here we see how to reconcile the opposites of Jupiter and Mercury (Gemini’s ruler):

Wisdom is not to be rushed into: it is to be received from the wholeness of life by the wholeness of one’s nature. Wisdom which is of the spirit is a gift. It is a gift because it comes to the recipient as a completed whole. He does not piece it together, part by part, hurriedly putting forth a scaffold and throwing into it every bit of available material. Wisdom is a gift. One must not force the giving of gifts (Rudhyar, p. 24).

Today there is a New Moon in Gemini and New Moons are seeding moments. Rudhyar uses a seed analogy in describing how Gemini must receive its gift:

All seeds mature slowly; wisdom and integration are of the nature of seeds. One must grow into them, effortlessly, serenely, in faith and in beauty (p. 25).

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Butterflies and Swords

Butterflies and Swords

On the surface it would seem butterflies and swords have nothing in common.

In tarot, swords are associated with air in astrology and the thinking function in typology.

The Knight, Queen, and King card of swords cards all have butterflies on them, which is a stark contrast with the heaviness of the sword.

The Sun is now in the air sign of Gemini, a sign that fits well with butterflies.

Gemini, ruled by Mercury, is curious and likes to move wherever its interests take them. It is playful, agile, and stop briefly at waystations, just like a butterfly.

(In my opinion, Gemini correlates better with the extraverted intuition function rather than with either thinking function, but I digress).

The three swords cards that are associated with Gemini are all challenging ones: 8, 9, and 10 of Swords.

Butterfly —the Greek word for psyche — represents transformation, and this can be daunting.

Caterpillars disintegrate into a soup of cells, out of which a butterfly emerges. That 8 of Swords image is cocoon-like.

Hermes (Mercury) is associated with “chance happenings and risking it all leading to great reward or great loss, making him the god of dice and lotteries. Hermes types are the caterpillars that give up everything for the possibility of becoming a butterfly” (Dennis Merritt, Hermes, Ecopsychology, and Complexity Theory, p. 37).

No wonder Gemini might want to stay under the 9 of Swords blanket sometimes or feel stabbed in the back like 10 of Swords for daring to be transformative.

Our spiritual development and transformation resembles “the death of the worm and the birth of a butterfly” over and over again in our life, per Julienne McLean:

“It describes our passages, crises, depressions, difficulties, our transitions and turning points. They nearly always, in large or small measure, entail a process of dying and rebirth into a different sense or experience of who we are, of our relationship to God and others, in our services and vocation in the world (McLean, Towards Mystical Union, p. 82).

Through a Jungian lens, the butterfly—and Gemini—represent the psyche’s capacity for transformation, the soul’s journey, and the hope for renewal. After dissolution, a new form and beauty can emerge.

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A Self Among, Not a Self Apart

A Self Among, Not a Self Apart

Full Moons give us the opportunity to ponder the reconciliation of opposites, which is a concept important in the Jungian world.

The opposites of Death and the High Priest are in the air right now, thanks to the Full Moon in Scorpio.

The Death card in tarot is associated with Scorpio. Per Jungian analyst Ken James, who is also a tarot teacher:

We struggle with the idea that we are contingent life forms undergoing constant transformation. And the most important lesson that we can learn here on the Earth plane is to release things that no longer serve us with the confidence that there will always be something more, something new, something that will emerge that we may not understand, but that is promised to us by virtue of our day-to-day experience.

The Hierophant (often returned to as High Priest or Pope) card in tarot is associated with Taurus.

This card, like Taurus, is grounded and indicates a preference for stability and external structures.

Per Rachel Pollack, “The name ‘Hierophant’ belonged to the high priest of the Greek Elusinian mysteries.”

It “indicates the intellectual tradition of the person’s particular society, and his or her education in that tradition.”

“In its best aspect the Hierophant (as outer doctrine) can give us a place to start in creating a personal awareness of God.” And “indicates our own inner sense of obedience.”

The penetrating intensity of Scorpio, like Death, challenges established structures and would prefer to encourage necessary dismantling rather than stability.

In the Death card, look at how there is a High Priest figure about to be taken out by Death.

How will these two ever reconcile?

I posed that question to the I Ching and received Hexagram 13: Fellowship.

It is fellowship and community that will bring about the reconciliation of these two opposites.

The additional figures on the Death and Hierophant cards aren’t exactly fellowship together. They are in submission to either Death or the High Priest/Hierophant.

James Hillman describes community as “not individuals coming together and connecting, and it’s not a crowd. ” So what is it?

Community to me means simply the actual little system in which you are situated, sometimes in your office, sometimes at home with your furniture and your food and your cat, sometimes talking in the hall with the people in 14-B. In each case your self is a little different, and your true self is your actual self, just as it is in each situation, a self among, not a self apart (Hillman, We’ve Had A Hundred Years of Psychotherapy-And the World’s Getting Worse, p. 43).

In the Death card there is a sun in the background, above the High Priest’s head and in between the two towers.

As selves among, maybe we can make that sun a little brighter.

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Make haste slowly — together

Make haste slowly — together

I recently came across a video of people in Sweden lining up to watch cows go outside for the first time since winter.

It’s called the “kosläpp” (cow release).

It seems an apt image for today’s theme of making haste slowly.

The Cultivate Gently hexagram 9 in the I Ching is what I received when asking for wisdom to share about today’s New Moon in Taurus.

For now, only small gains can be made. Which is how the fixed earth sign of Taurus likes it anyway, with its resistance to change.

Success in minor goals: you are a shepherd keeping your sheep calm with the calmness of your mind. Let the flock find their own shrubs and grass. The shepherd’s only role is to see that they are safe. —Benebell Wen, I Ching: The Book of Changes, p. 434).

While we are in the stage of making small gains, a good next step for us to contribute to the collective in a healthier way is to determine what is really your task and what is the task of others. Just like the shepherd’s task is to see to the safety of the sheep and the sheeps’ task is to feed themselves.

I’m reading the book The Courage to be Disliked, which is based on Alderian psychology. It emphasizes how interpersonal relationships are dramatically changed simply by not intruding on others’ tasks or having your own tasks intruded on.

How do you tell whose task it is? Decide who will ultimately receive the result of the choice that is made.

It is like the 2 of Swords image in tarot.

Figuratively put on a blindfold to close out distractions and go within.

There are choppy waters behind you, indicating people’s feelings might get ruffled by your decision. This can be difficult for those of us with a strong extraverted feeling function or lots of Libra energy.

The swords are heavy and are covering up the person’s chest, which in this case can be a way of protecting your own energy as you determine which tasks are no longer yours.

If you are leading a life of worry and suffering—which stems from interpersonal relationships—learn the boundary of “From here on, that is not my task.” And discard other people’s tasks. That is the first step toward lightening the load and making life simpler (p. 128).

Thus unencumbered, we can all make haste slowly—together.

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Pastoring our inner congregation of selves

Pastoring our inner congregation of selves

For the first time this year I drew the Three of Cups as my tarot card of the day.

The Three of Cups is about celebration and connection with others. I immediately thought of today’s Full Moon in Libra, which then brought extraverted feeling to mind, of course:

Extraverted feeling types are generally amiable and make friends easily. They are quick to evaluate what the outer situation requires, and readily sacrifice themselves for others. …there is a genuine rapport with others … The predominant impression is of a person well adjusted to external conditions and social values (Personality Types, Sharp, p. 50, emphasis added ).

That description of extraverted feeling resonates strongly with the energy of Libra, doesn’t it? And considering the Cups in tarot represent the feeling function, it further strengthens the connection.

This Full Moon in Libra highlights the core tension of this sign: the balancing act between Aries’s drive for independence and Libra’s yearning for relational harmony. To truly embody Libra, we must find a way to integrate our individual needs with our desire for connection.

One place to start is to practice extraverted feeling towards the many parts of our psyche first:

For Jung, then, the psyche is plural – composed of many parts, each jostling the others for control. To acknowledge the plurality of identity is to recognize both one’s brokenness and the possibility of growth. To accept this plurality is to realize that one does well to pastor this inner congregation of selves. -Alvin Dueck (The Living God and Our Living Psyche, Ann Belford Ulanov, emphasis added)

A few things that help with this pastoring are dream work, active imagination, and the parts work of Internal Family Systems (Bob Falconer and C. Michael Smith describe using parts work from a depth psychology perspective).

Acknowledging our multitudes ultimately enriches our collective experience so that we can see that “everything belongs:”

I was asked once by someone if I could capture the essence of Jung’s psychology in a single phrase…Finally, it came: everything belongs (Russell Lockhart, Psyche Speaks).

Not just everything, but everyone.

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Working on ourselves, in ourselves, and for ourselves

Working on ourselves, in ourselves, and for ourselves

And so it begins, the much-awaited Aries eclipse and entrance of Neptune into Aries, ushering in a new era where fire will become the dominant element. This marks a shift away from water and earth energy.

Am I the only one who has felt a bit waterlogged as of late, what with various planets all congregating together in late Pisces? Plus Mars is still in Cancer.

So let’s bring one some fire: individuation, freedom, spiritual autonomy, clarity, independence, charisma.

The shift from water to fire is like the withdrawal and return in the individuation process:

The withdrawal must conclude with a return—otherwise the journey was self-indulgent. Creative persons who respond to a challenge have to communicate a sense of their experience. If they can’t communicate their response, if they can’t cause others to listen and hear, they may suffer serious psychological damage within themselves (Sparks, Carl Jung and Arnold Toynbee: The Social Meaning of Inner Work, p. 72).

When we retreat to work on ourselves, we must then take it back outside and help fix the problems in society, otherwise we will remain detached:

By working on ourselves, in ourselves, and for ourselves, we are also working for society. Inner work, done at depth and with integrity, leads us back to the social world insofar as the problems we have addressed and made progress in solving in ourselves are also the problems ailing our times (Sparks, p. 41).

The fire energy is supportive of you doing what you do best.

Be clear on your values and what you stand for.

Remember you are not what happened to you – you are what you choose to become.

Reclaim the lost parts of yourself that you have previously disowned, as they are your treasures.

Learn to feel your fear without letting it stop you.

Finally, as James Hollis says, “keep the fire for freedom, dignity, and respect for all burning with a hot blue flame in your heart.”

We’re all depending on it.

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An Eclipse with Maple Sugar

An Eclipse with Maple Sugar

It’s that time of year where we look for the first signs of spring, both literal and metaphorical; both personal and collective.

The Maple Sugar Moon in Virgo later this week—this year it is also an eclipse—is a reminder how maple trees have a system for detecting spring that is far more sophisticated than ours. This harkens back to a time when maple trees helped people survive:

People living a subsistence lifestyle also know it as the Hunger Moon, when stored food has dwindled and game is scarce. But the maples carried the people through, provided food just when they needed it most. They had to trust that Mother Earth would find a way to feed them even in the depths of winter.

…The Maples each year carry out their part of the Original Instructions, to care for the people. -Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 68, emphasis mine

For just a few weeks in the spring, maple trees use their sapwood to transport sugar to the buds so that they can grow and blossom.

Then, because mature leaves make more sugar than they need, the leaves send sugar back to the roots of the tree. “And so the roots, which fed the buds, are now fed in return by the leaves all summer long” (Kimmerer).

It seems not entirely coincidental that the Maple Sugar Moon occurs in Virgo. The Sun in Pisces, representing the sweetness of sap, is combined with the harvesting energy of Virgo.

Kimmerer tells the story of Nanabozho, who was dismayed when he came upon villages where people had become lazy and were found sitting beneath maple trees with their mouths wide open to catch the syrup.

Because they were taking the gifts of the Creator for granted, he poured water into the maple trees to dilute the syrup. Today, sap only has a trace of sweetness. “And so it is that it takes forty gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup” (Kimmerer, p. 63, emphasis mine).

Saturn is co-present with the Sun in Pisces during this year’s Maple Sugar Moon, so it may be feeling like it takes even more than forty gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup, metaphorically speaking.

Nanabozho made certain that the work would never be too easy. His teachings remind us that one half of the truth is that the earth endows us with great gifts, the other half is that the gift is not enough. The responsibility does not lie with the maples alone. The other half belongs to us; we participate in its transformation. It is our work, and our gratitude, that distills the the sweetness (Kimmerer, p. 69, emphasis mine).

There is much talk these days among astrologers about the huge shift at the collective level from earth and water to air and fire in the common months and years.

This makes me appreciate our Maple Sugar eclipse in earthy Virgo all the more.

There are two questions that Kimmerer mentions in her book that haven’t been far from my mind since I read them. She said her students were unable to answer the first one in the affirmative, but became very talkative in response to the second.

I’ll close by leaving them with you to ponder:

Do you think the earth loves you?

What would happen if you believed that?

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How you are is who you are

How you are is who you are

How you are is who you are and not what you are said to be by your personality type, astrology chart, a medical diagnosis, job title, your role in your family, and so on.

That is a key concept of James Hillman’s “acorn theory” as described in his book The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character and Calling.

We are not able to see how any one is when we try to see by means of types, categories, classes, diagnostics. Types of any sort obscure uniqueness. (p. 124)

The acorn is “concealed invisible potential” that is visible in the how of an action. For example, it’s not that James Hollis is a Jungian writer but how he writes. It’s not that Jon Batiste is a musician but how he performs and composes music. (His song “Waldstein Wobble” is playing on repeat as I write this and I highly recommend it!)

As someone who speaks the languages of astrology and typology I, of course, see the irony here. Are not type and astrology just ways of putting people in a box, as the critics like to say?

On the contrary, astrology and typology are tools that have the potential to facilitate the “imaginative perception” that Hillman says is necessary to look “with the eye of the heart.” They also provide the language with which to craft a narrative of insight that says what we see:

To see the acorn requires an eye for the image, an eye for the show, and language to say what we see.

Failures in our loves, friendships, and families often come down to failures of imaginative perception. When we are not looking with the eye of the heart, love is indeed blind, for then we are failing to see the other person as bearer of an acorn of imaginative truth. (p. 124).

Hillman goes on to describe how psychological jargon is often used instead of describing what is really happening. For example, “your husband is not ‘mother-bound’, he whines and expects and is often paralyzed.” Defaulting to jargon happens in the astrology and type worlds too.

An example in astrology is when someone blames the planets – a sort of archetypal bypassing – when saying something like, “Mars retrograde in Cancer is making it hard to deal with my mother right now!” In actuality, astrology is divinatory; the planets are metaphoric mirrors that reflect what is happening but don’t cause things to happen. A thoughtful approach would include asking questions and exploring what material is being activated and brought to their attention regarding their relationship with their mother. From there, when the story is revealed, one can take a closer look at the archetypal ground of Mars in Cancer.

An example in typology is when someone says something like, “That’s my J talking!” It’s better to instead ask questions and explore how they used their extraverted thinking parent/caretaking function with a colleague in such a way recently that was close-minded and too focused on achieving the project’s goal.

John Beebe describes his archetypal model of typology as one that “opens life up the way a novelist does.” So, too, can astrology.

Empathy is the main requirement for imaginative perception:

[Empathy] enable[s] people to see through typical conceptions and into the heart of the other. Put yourself in your husband’s place, your wife’s, your child’s. Imagine how they feel, how would it be to be them? Imagine! Maybe you can discover a kernel of truth in their behaviors if you look again by means of imagining. (p. 125)

“To be is to be perceived,” said the Irish philosopher George Berkeley (1686-1753). We are all wounded healers of each other, whether therapists, astrologers, typologists, atheletes, or customer service representatives, it doesn’t matter. “Perception bestows blessing” as Hillman says, and by having the patience to perceive someone, we bestow blessing. “In your patience is your soul.”

How are you?

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Following in your own footsteps

Following in your own footsteps

The Great Mother does not tolerate childish dependence.

Cancer is the sign of the Great Mother archetype, and under today’s Full Moon in Cancer, co-present with Mars, the god of war, I can’t help but think of the Great Mother’s dual nature:

She has two aspects: in her light aspect she is compassionate, filled with maternal love and pity, and in her dark aspect she is fierce and terrible and will not tolerate childish dependence.” -M. Esther Harding

Harding reminds us that the Great Mother embodies both nurturing compassion and fierce demand for growth. This Cancer Full Moon highlights where we lean too heavily on others—or let others lean too heavily on us—hindering the balance she represents.

Mars in Cancer stirs up family karma — drama, conflict, and old patterns tied to parental complexes.

Rather than getting caught up in all that, how about pondering what you ask of others that you should instead do for yourself?

Also: do you take too much responsibility for the emotional well-being of others?

If you are a parent, this Cancer/Mars combo is a good time to remember Jung’s oft-quoted statement that a child’s greatest burden is the unlived life of the parent. Ouch!

This applies even if you aren’t a parent, as you likely mentor or take care of others in some way. There’s no Jungian author better than James Hollis on these points:

As parents, mentors, leaders of one kind or another, we are called to grow up, take care of business, gain our own authentic journeys, and thus lift this terrible distraction to the soul off those whom fate has brought into our care. That is how we are healed, our children healed, and their possibilities liberated. – James Hollis, Living an Examined Life

On the flip side, the assignment for adult children is to not just blame the parents and instead work with the Mars energy to become more conscious:

Being a grown-up means, essentially, that despite whatever formative things happened in my life, I am responsible for what spills into the world through me. I cannot just blame my personal parenting, however influential it might have been. I cannot blame ignorance. I cannot blame unconsciousness. In fact, Jung once said the unforgivable sin is to *choose* to remain unconscious. -James Hollis, The Broken Mirror

Mars in Cancer could find us saying “you can’t go home again,” but as Clarissa Pinkoloa Estés says, “While you cannot crawl back into the uterus again, you can return to the soul-home. It is not only possible, it is requisite.” Journaling, working with dreams, drawing mandalas, active imagination, and contemplation are a few ways to connect with your soul-home.

I shared the below quote on Instagram last week and a couple of people commented on how it is appropriate for Mars in Cancer:

For some, home is the taking up of an endeavor of some sort. Women begin to sing again after years of finding reason not to. They commit themselves to learn something they’ve been heartfelt about for a long time. They seek out the lost people and things in their lives. They take back their voices and write. They rest. They make some corner of the world their own. They execute immense or intense decisions. They do something that leaves footprints. – Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

As the Full Moon casts it light, leave your footprints boldly, and follow them with courage and curiosity to your soul-home.

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Saturn’s rain and repenting dragons

Saturn’s rain and repenting dragons

Saturn is raining!

Specifically, Saturn is losing its rings; water particles are leaking out of its rings at a “worst-case scenario rate.” That sounds alarming, but it will be a hundred million years before the rings completely vanish as a result of the”ring rain.” (source: The New Yorker)

That’s a slow pace even for Saturn. Due to the way Saturn will tilt in 2025, however, it will create the illusion that the rings are invisible (which sounds Saturn-Neptune-ish, too, but I digress). We’ll get a sneak peek of how Saturn will look a hundred million years from now.

This cosmic phenomenon, with its slow pace and inevitable transformation, feels aligned with the reflective wisdom of the I Ching, which also speaks to cycles of change and decisive action.

At sunrise today, New Year’s Day, I asked the I Ching oracle for wisdom for the new year to share here on the blog.

Creative Power, the first Hexagram, was the reply.

Its energy is all yang (masculine). It correlates with the beginning of summer. It advises that what has been hidden is now on the rise but we should pause before proceeding:

Know who you are. Know where you came from. Be humble and modest. Be above reproach—then those who seek to harm will be rendered harmless. You will become the dragon that emerges from the depths, visible and rising above your peers. A pillar of beneficent astral light guides your movements. You face a moment of choice: the temporal or the spiritual. Endurance and patience will be required of you, as what is to unfold shall do so for a prolonged length of time. – Benebell Wen, I Ching, The Oracle

The dragon, a symbol of power and wisdom, emerges from the depths to guide us; Saturn helps provide the endurance and patience. Although it sounds awesome to be like a dragon guided by astral light, changing line six echoes the caution to remember where you came from. If creative powers are misused, they will be retracted. “The arrogant and reckless dragon will repent.”

Decisive Action (Hexagram 43) is the follow up hexagram to this, suggesting the possible future state. Its image is of an impending flood and having to plan and act decisively.

Instead of all yang energy, there is now a hint of yin (feminine) added to the mix, as one of the six lines is yin.

After a long period of tension, there will be a breakthrough. Be careful, as there may be risks ahead. Your interests are not the only ones at stake in the endeavor; be sure to warn others about the risks involved, but do not yet reveal your intentions. No gains from reactive combat. You intuit that you must take decisive action, but how? In which direction will you go? Send a prayer upward to Heaven. Place full faith in the Divine that blesses your path, and your prayer shall be answered. The solution will be a different path from the one initially conceived. – Benebell Wen, I Ching, The Oracle

It correlates with late spring, before summer’s Creative Power, and is referred to as Grain Rain in the I Ching calendar. Grain rain is rain that brings forth a hundred grains. Whereas Saturn’s ring rain reminds us of the impermanence and cycles within the cosmos.

May we, like dragons following astral light, rise with the wisdom to navigate life’s impermanent yet fertile cycles, sowing the seeds of transformation in the new year and for generations to come.

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