The following is excerpted from Codex of the Soul: Astrology, Archetypes, & Your Sacred Blueprint, available from Evolver Editions/North Atlantic Books.
Every moment is pregnant with meaning, if you are listening. This game of life is not random chaos, nor strict order. You find yourself in between, riding the "chaord." As you surf this chaordic existence, you inhale personal purpose and interpret spiritual significance for your life's events in proportion to your level of consciousness. At the most cosmic and inclusive level of understanding, every person is an angelic messenger, every moment a sacred reflection of a spiritual lesson you came to learn. Astrology is a language that elucidates this process.
The astrological camera lens is both macro and telephoto. First, it widens your horizons of understanding, interdependently linking what may seem distant and disparate elements. Simultaneously, it microscopically magnifies the totality of your internal and external environment to reveal the rich and complex hologram of life — the patterned systems of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that synthesize to form your personal and collective Being. In utilizing an astrological framework for your earthly experiences, embodiment mutates into a magical education.
We are now urgently educating ourselves, teaching each other how best to imagine a new world, and how exactly to narrate the visionary dialogue of our shared evolution. In order to sing forth into being this emerging myth of human ascension and cosmic unity, you first need to understand the personal mythos breathing through you.
You feel a heroic calling, a spiritual warrior's invocation, pulsating from an internal depth of infinite potential. You wish to step out from behind any false masks, to unveil your true self behind any illusory outer identities. It is time to awaken to your mission. And so your personal alchemical opus beckons you.
To apply the astrological language in your life is an alchemical act: you learn how to transmute your base, your shadow self, into a refined, golden work of art. This process was called the "Great Work" by the alchemists. This "Great Work" of your soul, and the healing of the Planetary Soul, begins with the contemplation of your sacred script. In the puzzle of life, where do your pieces fit and how do they shapeshift through time and space? How do you surf the chaordic edges of existence with clear intention? The word "surrender" means "to melt to the highest." How, then, do you melt the limited ego down in order to ascend and surrender to your soul's highest purpose?
When you first begin astrological exploration, you may feel intimidated by the journey into the birthchart, afraid of what will be revealed there. This reaction to the astrological code, however, enslaves you to a disempowered and incomplete perspective of yourself. In this denial of your self-knowledge, you may find yourself drowning in avidya, the Sanskrit term for ignorance. You fail to accept the effervescent totality of your being. And so you habitually play out the karmic patterns — the ego's desires for pleasure and aversions to pain. Meanwhile, you sacrifice the fruitful presence offered to you — the golden, effulgent revelation occurring in the perfection of the Now.
For you were born in response to a spiritual need in the universe. In every way, this was the most intentional of all possible acts in which the soul could participate. To bring the same intensity of intention to the realm of embodiment on Earth, you are asked to remember this self-inscribed language of your soul. In the natal birthchart, you find a map that leads to the treasure of your essence. In the astrologer, you find a translator of the Codex of the Soul, a guide on the path to becoming an astral shaman.
Mindful Awareness and the Sacred Role of Astrology
Ye who seek, shall find. –Jesus
The Buddha teaches that ignorance clouds all true understanding. "Individuals with mindful awareness," says the Buddha, "are free of harmful influence." In essence, the Buddha is stating that if you lack self-awareness, you cannot act wisely, since you will be habitually and unconsciously responding to stimuli in your environment. Reactive behavior keeps you in the loop of seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, never understanding the fundamental nature of reality, and the importance of appreciating anicca or impermanence. This reactive ignorance is how you become a product of fate. However, as you become aware of your soul contracts and your incarnation agreements, you can learn to steer the ship of your destiny as a co-pilot, not just ride the roller coaster as a passive passenger.
And so this radical self-awareness is the alchemical mission of the modern avatar such as yourself. Your role as an astral shaman is to transmute your base, unrefined, reactive self into a vessel of luminosity, an enlightened bodhisattva who seeks to serve all beings on their path of awakening.
In many ways, it is far more challenging today than at any other point in history to remain mindful. From multiple online chats while writing an email, to texting while driving, to talking on the phone while watching the news, multitasking is a standard, expected, and sometimes necessary behavior. Yet the need for intentional, mindful relationship with yourself, with others, with the body of the Earth, and with the sacred dimension of the heavens is essential for the continued survival of all of us.
The astrological language provides parameters for this mindful attention, and its application in your life actually increases free will as you apply and integrate the lessons of the birthchart. Past experiences are studied to gain wisdom and perspective to apply toward potential energetic expressions of your future circumstances. Past and future embrace in an enhanced and empowered present, as you compassionately strategize your life with evolutionary intention.
Astrology and Interdependent Origination
As the Buddha sat at the base of the Bodhi tree, he realized that every thought, action, idea, and feeling is interdependent with every other. No single part has substance in and of itself. No phenomenon, sentient or inanimate, is separate from the causes and circumstances that create it, and so we are constantly relating to everything around us. We exist, relatively. The internet has increased our self-awareness as a global village, interconnected on every level. We both create and are created by all of life.
As a guide of souls, the astrologer reveals these interconnected pathways, and in doing so, facilitates greater options for you to make more conscious choices in life.
The astrologer as scientist is a technician of a craft, familiar with a metaphysical and linguistic tradition dating back four thousand years and spanning every culture, a science that still applies to every aspect of life. The astrologer as artist is a counselor who translates the mirror of your consciousness, and coaches you on how to best use your karmic toolset to actualize your dharma-your incarnate potential. With consciousness, you can transform your karma into your dharma.
And so the art-strologer, the astral shaman, is born-the synthesizer of the left brain rational mind and the right-brain intuitive mind, the one who listens deeper in order to instruct more wisely. On the role of the astrologer, Robert Blaschke states:
There is the spiritual responsibility in communicating the horoscope to the client. I think just like medicine where what is done by the physician can either heal or harm, astrologers are in a similar role. The astrological information can either be used in a negative and destructive way or in a positive and uplifting way…. People want to feel that connection to the divine, that connection to the cosmos. Yet I think that modern society has become so secular and so consumer oriented, there's a lot of spiritual emptiness in present day society and astrologers are filling that gap the same way the priestly class used to do in ancient times. (Phipps 2008)
Without the map of the birthchart, the psychologist, counselor, or coach often views only a narrow field of vision into the individual soul. The delicate textures of the individual are lost to "standardized" complexes or overly generalized new age affirmations. Therefore, each of these counseling fields can benefit from the specific soul-cartography depicted in resplendent detail in the birthchart and its evolutionary transits.
Author and professor Richard Tarnas states that psychology textbooks of the future will look back on twentieth-century psychologists working without the aid of astrology as we look back on medieval astronomers working without the aid of a telescope. Likewise, history textbooks of the future will also look back at twentieth-century historians working without the aid of astrology in a similar way, increasingly as perceiving events with only a narrow lens. For astrology "opens up the deeper archetypal rhythms and patterning and cyclical evolutions of cultural phenomena" (Phipps 2008).
As Vedic astrologer Dennis Harness states, "The astrologer of the future will be more of a psychomythologist" (Phipps 2008). Like the chorus of a Greek play, the astrologer can narrate and guide the client deeper into his or her journey into the emerging, evolving metapoem of the soul.
Transits, Participatory Synchronicity, and the Dialogue with the Divine
How do you become your own psychomythologist? How do you become an astral shaman?
Your birthchart unveils your very relation with the Source. It is your linguistic key into a conversation with the Divine. With a language to guide you in the dance of impermanence, you experience a richness of meaning in the orchestration of synchronicity in your life. Only a poetic, imaginative mind can grasp the magnitude of intelligence behind your life's magical design, as the cosmos seems to sing both directly to you and to every other individual. You experience the supernatural textures of numinosity — the felt presence of the Beyond, the ineffable mysterium tremendum. And you ask, how can something so transcendent affect the phenomenal world in such a personal way? In awe and humility, you become empowered to live more authentically your verse of the interwoven Poem of Being.
Today we are gifted with so many techniques and tools to perceive the unfolding patterns in our lives. For example, knowing when a transit is going to occur in your life gives you the ability to actively seek omens in your life. In this way, astrology becomes interactive as you dance in the center of the holographic mandala. Here, everyone is your messenger; every event is meaningful. As you engage the unfolding design of your life, your consciousness brilliantly illuminates the patterns in the true meaning of the word "psychedelia" — "mind manifesting" before you. When you meditate upon and engage with your transits-the current invitations and initiations of evolutionary forces — you experience your life in a cosmic context. You recognize that particular elements of your soul are seeking evolution and education. The transiting planet will trigger that point in your chart and will activate that realm within your soul.
Your daily journal is transformed into a dialogue with a sacred dimension of synchronistic meaning. What was previously perceived as random chaos is transfigured into patterns of profound significance. You see the "signs" all around you, you hear the cosmos sing directly to you-and you wish to respond.
The language of astrology itself is neutral — it is a mapping of processes rooted in the archetypal dimension but occurring amid the human sphere of experience. As you study and apply this language of the heavens, you understand that your life is not random, but pulsing with heavenly signs, overflowing with meaning, with an intelligent synchronicity orchestrating existence. For astrologer Robert Blaschke, astrology is the Holy Spirit, "a necessary language that connects heaven with earth" (Phipps 2008).
But synchronicity is participatory. And so this cosmic communication is not a fated monologue by the universe; rather, it is a dance of deeper listening that can effect a psychological regeneration and a spiritual liberation. Life becomes more of a magical play, an alchemical laboratory for learning, an immediate application of wisdom for personal and collective soul-evolution.
Let's say that you learn that Saturn is about to transit your Sun by conjunction. Knowing that the Sun symbolizes your life purpose and vitality, and that Saturn's evolutionary urge to mature and invite great responsibility to whatever point it touches, you can prepare yourself for a more serious time in your life, where you must discipline yourself and work hard. Since Saturn can limit or restrict what it touches, you may feel that you have less energy and you may even feel depressed or disappointed in yourself, especially in the house or realm of life experience where the Sun is located, and the area of life the Sun rules. Therefore, you will be invited to use your energy more wisely and with greater focus in these areas. You may feel increased pressure to bring something important to the world during this year to year-and-a-half transit in these realms, so solitude and deep contemplation at this time would allow you to evaluate how you do or don't feel success in your life. By the end of this transit, you will discover a deeper level of wisdom within yourself and a more disciplined path to fulfilling a role in the larger community.
Thus, the transiting sky transmits meaning for the phases of personal growth and release. As Divine Inspiration astrologer Kelly Lee Phipps (2003) states, "Astrology empowers you to communicate with spirit and engage the conversation with love."
Quantum Astrology and the Paradox of Time
The archetypal language of the stars sings of the original forms, the divine fingerprints, the first images of being. But this language is fluid, malleable, and with a myriad of possible expressions. This leads us to an understanding of what Rick Levine (2005) calls "quantum astrology," whereby a planet is both a particle and a wave. We can describe the psychological force of a planet in a sign, as the Moon in Libra, as a specific kind of energy being transmitted. But these evolutionary urges of the planets are also processes, like waveforms, not located in a particular place. The Moon in Libra can express itself through time more neutrally, in a more shadow form, or in a more positive, luminous form, depending on the application of one's consciousness. This Moon in Libra process within an individual will undergo further transformations as other psychological forces trigger or catalyze it to new levels of understanding. If Pluto, for instance, conjoins that Moon, the emotions of that individual will go through a total regeneration, a process of death and rebirth, whereby the "particle" version of Moon in Libra will have changed dramatically.
This quantum phenomenon within astrology helps us to understand how we can both feel always "ourselves" and simultaneously feel the flow of perpetual change. Here we arrive at the language of time and its unique qualities. Experiences and relationships are intrinsically paradoxical — both reflecting something familiar and shimmering with an effervescent uniqueness. Astrology provides a vocabulary to honor the subtle shades in the bardospace between the known and unknown. Celestial linguistics gives us a poetic decryption of the delicately contoured code of sameness within difference, the repeating pattern pulsing within the body of the new moment.
Your birthchart can be expressed in an infinite number of ways; the archetypes are malleable and multivalent, filled with a myriad of possible expressions. Thus, a birthchart will be lived differently for those born at the same moment in space and time because of the level of intention, awareness, and conscious attunement capable in the individual soul. You choose how to archetypally describe your world through the language you inscribe to yourself. Becoming a student of your life requires this kind of intricate, breathing language for understanding how universal forces interpenetrate the experience of embodiment.
Bibliography
Levine, Stephen. A Year to Live: How to Live This Year as If It Were Your Last. New York: Bell Tower, 1997.
Phipps, Kelly Lee. Celestial Renaissance: A Revolution of Astrology. Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 1997.
From Codex of the Soul: Astrology, Archetypes, & Your Sacred Blueprint by VerDarLuz, published by Evolver Editions, an imprint of North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2012 by VerDarLuz. Reprinted by permission of publisher.
Teaser image by Ralph Buckley, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
