The following is something I wrote, some days ago, as the last exercise of module 3 of the Faculty of Astrology course study. I was asked to write what I think astrology means to me. I am posting it now for the New Moon in Gemini in my 4th house and very near my IC, as a new intentional seed I am lavishing in space and time. Blessed be!
I have been asked many
a times why I am studying Astrology and how does it work. Whilst I do
somehow know why I am using all my free time to study Astrology, I
still find it hard to answer to the question “how does it work”.
In a way it is that
same tricky question when my clients ask me “how does homeopathy
work?”. It is that strange situation when one has used many a times
homeopathy and has just as many a times delivered optimal results but
there is no crystal clear cut, scientific answer that satisfies our
modern urge and need of how we rationally interpret cause and effect.
Yes I can answer my
clients that homeopathy works with the law of similitude, like cures
like. But does that really explain mechanistically how it works? No
not really.
Modern society has been
breed to a very mechanistic and reductionist view of life. Every
single thing needs to be explained in bits and pieces like the cogs
in a watch. If that is not possible than that phenomenon is viewed as
erratic, unorthodox and superstitious, so open to all kinds of
attacks by the scientific world.
Any yet it is that
scientific world, that fringe division of quantum physics, biology
and chemistry that is bringing us back to a one big mystery in life:
we are all inter-related, all inter-connected, that there is no you
and me, that our mind influences, physically, so to speak, what we
observe.
That out there is
actually in here, in me.
That the whole of the
Universe, if such a concept can be really envisioned, is like a huge
nervous system, a matrix intricately linked, pulsing with life, with
synchronicity.
That we are not exempt
from that butterfly effect on the other side of the planet.
So if a butterfly
flapping its wings can somehow have an effect on me, can I presume
that a planet infinitely bigger than a butterfly, with its movement
around the Earth, have an effect on me?
Is
it the planet having an effect on me or does the planet represent
something that I innately resonate within myself?
Why do I find it
difficult to explain this to those who ask me about Astrology?
Especially those who are already on the other side of the fence ready
to spur at any false move.
Reading Article 6 was a
at first painfully real. That is exactly what I get from that part of
society who are against homeopathy and astrology just because they,
ad priori, assume it does not work because it can't be
reductionistic-ally explained, because science the new religion can't
explain it. Interesting is the fact that usually those who are
against homeopathy are also against astrology.
Astrology however has
that added punch of irritating those who believe in the Catholic
Church or any monotheistic religion. It seems you can't practice,
read astrology and be a Catholic contemporary (at least in my part of
the world).
Then as I started
reading James Hillman, tears came to my soul. He has written albeit
in an astoundingly articulate yet highly emotionally evocative manner
what I feel astrology means to me. He starts from the same premises
that has brought me to a more holistic vision of life.
I, a scientist to the
bones have had my mind's eye opened when I read The Mind's I (pun
intended) and The Tao of Physics as a science student and they were
not part of my University reading list. I still remember the look of
the librarian when I asked for a copy of The Tao of Physics.
And how synchronistic
is that...The Mind's I was written in the same year I was born and
The Tao of Physics a couple of years afterwards.
I was born embodying
those energies that brought back the soul to science, the other half
James Hillman so eloquently talks about in his speech.
I, probably,
unconsciously living out my chart, the energies that constitutionally
make up my wiring, have created situations to, first come in contact
with homeopathy and then with astrology. For me they were huge
turning points in my life, an added missing link and yet as I come
out to people from my University or childhood days they all tell me
the same thing: You were always interested in such things.
And yet I still can't
explain such things.
I intimately know they
work, I empirically tried them out, first on myself and then on
willing friends and neighbours and I got my “scientific” results.
But honestly speaking,
at the end of the day, does it really matter to know infinitesimally
how homeopathy or astrology works?
Does science in the
form of medicine really know how drugs work at that sub-cellular,
sub-atomic level?
Macroscopically maybe,
that a molecule binding to a series of receptors can elicit a certain
response in the body but for many drugs the “real mechanism” is
completely unknown, theory is used to explain the effects and many
times such theory is changed several times.
Does this scientific
uncertainty prevent us from using drugs? No
So why does such
extreme rigour is unilaterally applied to holistic therapies under
which I personally classify Astrology? Fear?
Fear of being
empowered? Fear of accepting that we are all part of a bigger
identity whatever and however we would like to define that identity?
So if I could simply
leave behind all the judgemental baggage I still carry within myself,
for me Astrology is the outer physical manifestation of what goes
within us.
The planets are sort of
wind compasses that macroscopically show what microscopically is
happening within us. They are the visible notes of celestial music to
which all of us internally tune in consciously or not, willingly or
not.
Astrology helps making
conscious what otherwise might be “left to chance” to uncover and
life has quite a peculiar way of “helping us” reveal things.
Sometimes not always in the most comfortable manner.
Astrology helps us
become aware of who we are, to grow into the power of that precise
geophysical moment in time we chose to be born in and with, to fully
endow ourselves with the gifts we harbour inside.
Astrology tries to
explain that intricate constitution of our being by showing the
Zeitgeist of our natal chart and it is up to the astrologer to give
such an interpretation as much as a homeopath meticulously gathers
all the symptoms and peculiarity of the patient so to emerge with a
remedy that is the quintessence of the patient in that point in time.
Astrology is a
“scientific”discipline as much as it is a divinatory art slowly
unearthing the meaning of the natal chart, a blue print copy of what
we have decided to work with in this lifetime.
Becoming aware of where
the wind is blowing from and how much force is likely to be expected,
helps us choose deliberately which sails are better situated for the
journey.
Astrology helps us grow
in our individual role as conscious co-creators of our personal life
and of that ever pulsating matrix we loosely call Universe.
Astrology helps us
understand that we embody all of creation, each with his/her own
declination, with planets situated in particular houses governed by
particular signs and sagely interacting with each other through
aspects.
Astrology helps us
understand that as life unfolds so does our natal chart. Different
energies, winds, planetary transits wisely show where our own innate
energies, natal resonating planets, are being called to action.
To say the truth,
Astrology fascinates me and being an apprentice to such millennial
tradition makes me feel honoured and fills my life with sublime
purpose.
And yet such honour
comes with a lot of hesitancy, of the inadequacy that sprouts out of
a finite person fully aware of one's own limitations and personal
dilemmas to solve or at least serenely live with, in front of such
immense wisdom.
Astrology for me is a
constant and continuos means of self-discovery and self-empowerment.
A tool through which navigate life as wilfully and hopefully as
discerningly as possible and maybe in some kind of future be also a
helpful tool through which I can responsibly be of a service to
others.
