As Above, So Below: Contemplating the Sky

by Andrea Goodman of Ruby-Throated Spirit 

 

Where I live on the coast of Maine, the stars lean in close. On a clear night, the longer I look, the more stars I see and recognize in their constellations. For over three decades I have studied the mythology of the heavens and the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets against the backdrop of sparkling stars. As an astrologer, I remind people of their relationship to these powerful archetypes. I believe that each soul chooses its moment of birth for the specific combination of energies that moment holds, the qualities and tendencies in unique planetary arrangement that reflects the personality that soul will express. Beyond our biological and cultural heredity, we each have a soul path, and your birth chart marks the beginning of your soul's journey as you in this lifetime. Your soul has aspirations, deep desires for this incarnation, and much to express creatively.

 

Any moment in time and space is very specific and the astrology of that moment can help us to understand its challenges and gifts. We are now in a challenging time, completing a three year period of intense struggles to change, in evidence all over the world. Each one of us feels this differently in our own lives. Some have been undergoing a feeling of death and rebirth, a deep and undeniable sense that they are no longer the same person they were. Others have felt called to witness and assist. The planets Pluto and Uranus in a square (90 degree angle to each other) symbolize this intensity and tension that pushes us toward our transformation. Uranus represents our impulse to individuate, to express our uniqueness, to break free of cultural expectations that may not fit our authentic selves. Pluto, mythically the lord of the "underworld,'" mysterious place of death, is the symbol of our impulse to leave behind one phase of life and begin a new one. All the planetary archetypes are within us in a very personal way. We know them intimately but may not have named them for ourselves.

 

Astrology is a language of symbols, a way to speak about who we are and how we grow and develop. The Sun represents our sense of our identity. We radiate our expression, each one of us a shining star, a sun, exuding our light in our own way, and that way is described by one's astrological sign. While that is important, it's not the whole picture. The Moon brings intuition and what we feel emotionally, which might be very different from our outward expression. Mercury, Messenger of the Gods, is our perception, logic and communication. Venus, Goddess of love and beauty, is the symbol of our relating and receiving, our aesthetic sensibility, and for women, our feminine identity. Mars the Warrior gives us the ability to take action and stand up for ourselves. These are our "personal planets" and each one carries a facet of who we are. Each will be in one of the 12 zodiacal signs at birth, and each moves in its own orbit, forming angles within the circle to other planets, giving them very specific qualities. For example, Mercury with Jupiter, king of the Gods and symbol of expansion, is probably talkative and dramatic, a storyteller, perhaps prone to exaggeration and enthusiasm. Mercury with Saturn is likely to be serious and concentrated, persistent and thorough.

 

We are in a time now, since 2012, with Neptune in Pisces, God/Goddess of the Sea in the sign of the Fish. The last time Neptune was in Pisces was 1847 to 1861, right after its discovery in 1846. This is a time of opening our consciousness to the realms of imagination--dreams, visions and subtle vibration. The more we can imagine what another person experiences, the more compassion we feel for each other. The larger our view of what is possible, the more likely we are to experience synchronicities and miracles. The awareness that our dreams have information for us helps us to remember dream realities. The concept of our physicality as full of space with everything vibrating, nothing really fixed or solid and dense as it seems, suggests that we can heal ourselves through the power of our visualization. Neptunian awareness seeps into us like water, gradually dissolving old rigid thinking and the forms of rigidity. We are opening, more and more, to transcend the imaginary fence between physical and spiritual, between human and Divine, between Earth and the vast, limitless Cosmos.