Internal Planetary Systems

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The beginning of Internal Planetary Systems

I created Internal Planetary Systems when I recognized the impeccably aligned parallels between the archetypes and planets of astrology, and the Internal Family Systems therapy model. Astrology is not only, in my opinion, the original parts work, but it also relates beautifully to several other healing techniques including archetypal psychology, and narrative therapy. Archetypal psychology seeks to create self-understanding through explorations of internal archetypes and how they express themselves. And the narrative model challenges standard myths and constructs, seeking to empower the individual in relating to their experience through authoring their own reality with self-compassion and aligned values. Internal Planetary Systems integrates the ancient archetypes of the zodiac, the narratives and myths they enact and pass down through generations, and the parts that articulate different characteristics both empowered and disempowered.

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What is Internal Planetary Systems?

Internal Planetary Systems is inspired by Internal Family Systems and is designed to create space for compassionate self-actualization, using the planets in our astrological birth charts, as our internal parts. The planets describe the condition of our parts on several levels.

First, the planet itself represents an archetype, it is a character that is playing a role on a stage (the house) set with particular scenery (the zodiacal sign). To use another metaphor, The planet is a character or creature, living in a certain landscape (the house) with certain environmental qualities (the sign). Venus, for example, is the goddess of love, beauty, relationships, values, and justice. Internally she represents our romantic expression, our creativity, feminine divinity, pleasure, values, and relational body.

Mars represents our martial faculties; it is the warrior within, or for more gentle folks, the hill we would die on. Mars embodies our desires, our efforts and passions, it is our willingness to bleed for a cause and our determination. It is our vital energetic force, the power that lives within our body, motivates us, and provokes us to action. For the rest of the planets, you’ll have to take my course or do your own exploration.

Second, the location of the planet, the house it is in at the moment of the native’s birth, describes the stage where it enacts its role. The location of the planet indicates the part of the native’s life that experiences a concentration of that particular energy. Themes of this location will be magnified and illuminated. Perhaps the native has several planets in one house, this is called a stellium when it is 3 or more, there they will notice a focus of meaning-making and purposeful growth. The lessons for the native and that particular part of themselves will be most evident in that area of their life.

1st House: the self, identity, the body, style, presentation to the public

2nd House: resources, values, worth

3rd House: the neighborhood, siblings, communication style, ideas

etc. …for all 12 houses

Third, the condition of the planet, the sign where it resides, gives us insight into the resources it has access to and the ways this part expresses itself. The zodiac sign that the planet, the part, resides in at the moment of the native’s birth, is like the scenery on the stage where it plays its part. Some signs offer much support to a particular planet while other signs are recognized as a challenging landscape for that planet to navigate. Of course, challenging realities often make for resilient and resourceful people. Some even say demanding dynamics build character.

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And finally, there is a simple, yet highly effective technique that I use to describe the age we first integrated the part embodied by each planet. It is called the pinball method and it makes operative the degree of the planet. The age we began learning crucial lessons about that planet is illuminated by the degree. We are invited to reflect, meditate, and or journal on the year that corresponds to the degree of each planet to gain awareness of how our relationship to that planet began. Much like Richard Schwartz’s technique recognizes the various ages of each part, the planets are located at certain degrees within each sign of the zodiac and this degree speaks to the age. For a planet located at the 9th degree, the tool becomes, a meditation on the 9th year of life and what that year taught us about the qualities, characteristics, and behaviors of that planet. This allows us the potential to integrate the lessons of each planet by the time we experience our Saturn return, a time defined by lessons of discipline, maturity, intentionally set boundaries, and commitments. The Saturn return occurs by the 29th year, and the degrees, 0 to 29, of each sign ensure we have at least met each planet before our 30th solar return.

How does Internal Planetary Systems work?

Archetypes help us to organize and categorize the characteristics, patterns, and relationships that shape our world. By deepening our relationships to the archetypes and the planets, we can understand the nuances of these cycles and significations. The myths and stories that are embedded in our culture, ourselves, and our ancestry, form who we are and how we relate to the world and the identities we are embodying. Archetypes articulate and embody the “metaphors we live by” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980).

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Intentionally cultivating relationships with the planets externally, supports an internal process of relationship building with our complex, internal parts. Exploring the archetypes and the nuanced narratives and themes they portray reinforces the compassion we can offer ourselves as we navigate self-actualization. Even the astronomical cycles, as simple and familiar as the full moon, can offer us immediate relief as we acknowledge a pattern of disturbed sleep on a monthly basis. This knowledge can inform and mobilize our self-awareness and self-care practices affording us a solid foundation on which to heal and transform.

The native is invited to recognize and reflect on each of the planets in their chart, their placements in both house and sign. The degree of each planet offers coordinates to the year that is punctuated by the first integration of that planet and its archetypal significance. Special attention is paid to the planet ruling the chart as I believe it may be best related to as the highest self. The native takes particular inspiration from the constellation on the horizon at the moment of their birth; this is the rising sign or ascendant. The celestial body that governs the rising sign, therefore becomes something of a muse for the native throughout their life. A Sagittarius rising, for example, is ruled by Jupiter and is invited to embrace empowering expressions of the God of Thunder. By asking ourselves, “what would [insert ruling planet here] do?” we can pray to the solar system, offer reverence to our patron god, connect with the archetype that stretches across time and space, and offer ourselves faith and compassion in an uncertain world. It is well-studied that faith offers peace in disturbing times, making astrology a particularly powerful tool of connection and transformation.

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

— Mark Twain

As we practice reflecting and relating to the zodiac and our internal parts, we learn to sustain connection and recognize patterns internally and externally. By watching the orbits of the planets in the sky, we can prepare to meet challenging moments with mindful awareness and celebrate ease and prosperity with reverence and gratitude. We can witness and honor the depths and complexities of the people we are in orbit with, by offering understanding to their expressions of the archetypes they are called to learn from. The lessons we can learn from history become undeniably clear, calling for the presence of mind, body, and spirit in our current time/space so we may transcend historical patterns, learning from the past.

Why is Internal Planetary Systems valuable?

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”

— Viktor Frankl

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Astrology is a meaning-making system. It articulates thematic areas of transformation, reinforces ancient archetypal narratives, and embodies celestial cycles. By developing awareness and understanding of each of the planets in our chart, how they thrive, and where they are challenged, we can recognize the multitudes within while connecting to the cosmos. We can increase capacity for self-acceptance through an intentional approach to the diverse and complex parts of ourselves. As we cultivate a deeper relationship with the different elements of our internal world, we can connect more purposefully with the time/space we are born into.

Actively participating in the zodiacal journey of the planets in our solar system through observation and self-reflection offers opportunities to live with a sense of wonder and purpose that is fortifying and dynamic. Transformation and healing become as playful as it is purposeful when we connect to our internal world with compassion and a sense of belonging in time and space. This presence, connection, and transformation is what Internal Planetary Systems offers us.

Aries: independence + integration

We begin the zodiacal cycle with the Sun transiting across the constellation of Aries. This marks the zodiacal new year, the beginning of Spring in the northern hemisphere, and the Spring equinox. It is a time of renewal, of life returning to a sleeping environment.

The words of Aries are “I AM.” This archetype speaks to individuality while encapsulating the oneness of the collective. At first glance Aries may appear selfish or self-interested but in it’s most empowered expression, the individuality is wholly integrated into the collective One. The baby of the zodiac is much like human baby who may present like a tiny tyrant but who have not yet developed a distinction between themselves and others. Their demands are not tyrannical, but an assertion of willful desire for collective needs to be met. Like the Warrior who may be seen as bold, brash, and ego driven, empowered Aries offers these qualities to the collective with the wisdom and purpose of selfless devotion to the common good.

The lessons of Aries are of independence and integration, assertion of will, ambition, leadership, and pioneering or initiating action. Aries is called to go first, to bleed first for the cause, to start sh*t. Without a leader, or at least someone willing to go first, we are stagnant and stuck in chaos without a beginning or an end. The bravery, independence, and audacity of this archetype teaches us the value of the individual in service to the collective.

While independence is one side of the spectrum navigated by the archetype of Aries, the other is integration. As shown in the etymology of the word, integration embodies oneness, wholeness, completeness. Empowered independence is not about isolation or detachment from the collective, it is the embodiment of leadership that is conscious of and devoted to the community it leads. Integration is not the loss of individuality to the group, but the awareness of unity and wholeness in the self.

Selfishness is the art of Aries. To articulate need and desire, is what this archetype teaches us. While we cannot guarantee receipt of our needs and desires, we are nearly promised never to receive them without asking. We may risk disappointment or the vulnerability of exposing our will, but this act of vulnerability is the price we pay for a chance to have our needs and desires met.

In American culture, independence is a highly glorified quality. From a therapeutic perspective however, this privileging of independence can present some concerning issues. While it is often Libra, the opposite sign from Aries, that is associated with codependency, the other side of the codependent coin is hyper-independence. This is the deluded belief that an individual can ‘do it all alone.’ The behavior that insists on never sharing it’s needs for fear of exposing the need to receive support or worse, asking and being rejected. Not only does absolutely nothing occur in a vacuum on our planet, but humans are a pack animal, communally oriented and requiring of family, a village, to achieve anything.

While leadership is an honorable quality, it is nothing without a community to lead. The same is true for the archetype of Aries; independence is noble but without a sense of integration, connection to the collective, it is isolated and adrift without purpose.

Birth of An Aries

I am an Aries Sun, born on the very first day of Aries season in 1994. My life began in the most Aries way I can imagine. During a wild blizzard, my mother sent my two older brothers to stay with a friend so she could bring me into the world in a quiet and peaceful house that I would call home for the first twelve years of my life.

My mother first went into labor in her own home on March 11th, squarely in Pisces season. My parents called the midwives, and everything but it turned out it was a false alarm. Despite contractions occurring just 7 minutes apart, my mom would continue to carry me for another 10 days. During the final day of Pisces season, my mother took things into her own hands and in a classically Aries assertion of will she initiated my birth by taking castor oil. She had already had two children and was confident in her birthing, leading her to choose to give birth quite independently. She had the support of my Dad, a physician, and two midwives, one of whom would later become the nurse at my school. (We’re nothing if not connected, integrated on a deep, karmic level.) Just as quickly as labor began, her contractions stopped.

Then, at midnight, on the 21st of March, her contractions began again, this time as fast and furious as the Cardinal Fire sign of the zodiacal new year. Only 12 minutes past midnight, I was born into my family on the Spring equinox.

As I was put on my mother’s chest, my father reached out to jostle my newborn body, encouraging me to cry and take my first breath, as his training had taught him. One of the midwives caught his hand, assuring him I would take my first breath independently. My Dad loves to tell this story, and it’s always helped me understand myself on a deep level that has been integral to my self-actualization. I took my first breath entirely of my own accord and in an instant, turned from blue to pink. Then, much to my mother’s surprise, I took a nap.

Napping is still an essential tool of well-being for me, it acts as a “turning it off and back on again.” Breathing techniques also provide me much comfort and serenity, as I feel the power of recognizing my own equilibrium through balancing the pressure of my lungs and calming my entire nervous system using my own body, my own life force, my own breath.

A sweet friend of mine, who shares the March 21st birthdate, calls us “blast off babies,” because…three…two…one BLAST OFF! This day is the ignition of a new zodiacal season, a new trip around the sun, a new season of growth, an initiation of action for all life on Earth (at least in the northern hemisphere.)

I have always considered my birthday to be special, given the peaceful nature of my birth, too often a traumatizing experience for everyone involved. The fact that it is on the Equinox and often the first day of Spring also gave me an obnoxious sense of originality. But it was only when I became a practicing astrologer that the power of my 0º Sun, exalted in the sign of Aries, became a signature that has supported my compassionate self-actualization and empowered sense of self.

Pisces: connection + boundaries

Pisces is the zodiac symbolized by two fish swimming in opposite directions. This image reminds us that two things can be true at once, drawing on the mysticism and the vast unknown associated with Pisces.

Pisces navigates the spectrum of boundaries, moving from boundlessness that leaves us with nothing to connect to and boundaries that create healthy and sustainable connection. It describes how vulnerable we become to losing ourselves to substances, experiences, and relationships without boundaries. On the other hand it represents the boundaries that endorse healthy connection and inspire a love solid enough to hold onto.

It is the mutable, meaning flexible and changeable, water sign and the last archetype in the zodiac marking the death and rebirth of cycles. In many traditions and certainly Tropical Astrology, water signifies emotional and intuitive powers. Combine the mutable mode of adaptation and responsiveness with the sensitive and emotive properties of water and we have the highly intuitive, creative escape artist that is the sign of Pisces.

Pisces is poetry, the lyrical reality, the liminal space where dreams materialize and riddles are the best questions to ask. This archetype is as much blessed as it is cursed by porosity, a lack of boundaries that leave this narrative plenty of opportunities for martyrdom and sacrifice. Perhaps the most ‘spiritual’ of the signs, Pisces offers lessons in allegory and symbolism. It is best described in metaphor if we hope to capture the mythical siren that is Pisces.

The nature of Pisces is mystical, dreamy, and highly changeable which can lead us down tangential paths when trying to capture the meaning of this elusive archetype. I often find myself struggling to put the Piscean archetype into words, instead becoming distracted or losing my train of thought as the phantasm of this archetype blurs definitions. Pisces is associated with illusion and delusion and often teaches lessons of faith by demonstrating what is not real and what cannot be proven, requiring us to discern for ourselves the meaning and pathway that inspires us.

The ancient ruler of the sign of Pisces was Jupiter. This affinity describes the faith-based lessons of Pisces through the expansion and ascendance articulated by Jupiter. In 1846 the planet Neptune was discovered and then identified as the ruler of this aquatic sign. This era was marked by a number of archetypally relevant discoveries including significant developments in pharmaceuticals and photography. Both pharmaceuticals and photography are fraught with complex layers of illusion and delusion. Both fields hold mysterious narratives such as ghosts captured on film during the early days of photography that were actually the photographer passing through the image while the very low sensitivity of the film required the subject to stand still for a while to allow the image to develop on film. This would create a blurry image of the “ghost” while the subjects believed they had been visited by a deceased ancestor while holding very still for the portrait. The use of photography in court can also offer some concerns for deception as so much faith is put in what we see when in reality, much can be manipulated or mutated to create an illusion our eyes can easily believe. Meanwhile, pharmaceuticals and the industry that has manipulated and contorted the art of pharmacology and herbalism has created a complex narrative of illusion in response to diagnoses of delusions. Pharmaceutical treatment of mental health produced innumerable opportunities for distortions of reality which mirrors the fantastical and hallucinogenic properties of Pisces seamlessly. Corresponding with the chemical sensitivity, the emotional manipulation, and the discrepancies in perception of reality the Pisces archetype and natives navigate narratives of addiction, escapism, and the vast subconscious.

The connection between Pisces and mental health goes deeper than pharmacology as it reflects the unseen, the emotional, and the subconscious areas that are explored and ideally integrated in mental health practices. The porosity of this archetype makes lessons of boundaries a key theme in the Pisces narrative. Whether they are boundaries of abstinence or discernment, limited access to resources or relational, boundaries are the balm to the sacrificial nature of Pisces.

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c. 1484–1486)

The planet Venus is exalted in Pisces, an alignment best articulated by the enlightenment of compassion, the highest form of love. The love Venus brings to a Piscean landscape has the opportunity to spread with the boundlessness of the kind of love we associate with spiritual leaders like the Buddha, Jesus, and Mohammed. It is the ideal love, without restriction or regulation. It is the fantastical love of fairy tales and our wildest dreams. The sensitive and flexible environment that is Pisces, provides the perfect context for the subconscious to come to the surface and intuition to be explored. This same context can induce the urge to escape and dissociate. Where feelings are expressed with vulnerability and fantasy can be articulated without shame, that is where love thrives, where Venus flourishes.

Venus’s exaltation in Pisces also ties together the connection to Neptune. The Greek counterpart to Venus, [the origin of Roman Venus appears to be missing] Aphrodite, was born of the sea, Neptune’s domain.

Capricorn: Use and Conservation

The archetype of Capricorn exists on a spectrum of use and conservation. It speaks to the governance of resource and intentional management of time, space, and goods. The archetypal opposites that depict the spectrum of Capricorn, the modern capitalist banker, willing to cultivate capital wealth based on a precarious and unsustainable value system at the expense of the environment and future generations on the one hand; and the purposeful indigenous ancestors who planted seeds generations ago, knowing they were creating sustainable wealth for the future based on time tested wisdom that honors the sacred land on the other. The legacy is what matters to ambitious Capricorn, and the lessons of this cool, boundaried, and powerful archetype are focused on whether it’s all worth in the end.

When there’s nothing left but your name, what will it mean?

Capricorn is the archetypal embodiment of economics. The root of the word economy leads us to the original meaning that signifies management of the home or clan. This is where the practical nature of Capricorn shines bright; a great deal of responsibility and pragmatism must go into maintaining the stability of the home, its structure and resources, over time. This means a strong understanding of what is valuable, what is “worth it” must be cultivated to make sustainable choices. It means understanding the needs of the collective and maintaining enough distance to make hard choices that are required of a leader. It means holding space for all of the emotional complexities of the home and supporting healthy boundaries that are the foundation of healthy relationships.

Capricorn is a cardinal sign that is oriented toward initiation of action and the competitive desire to achieve. It is also an Earth sign, making it materially and tangibly inspired and motivated. The Earth, moved by the cardinal modality initiates purpose and meaningful action toward efforts that will last. Capricorn creates structural integrity out of generational wisdom and ancestral tradition to forge a purposeful foundation stable enough to hold the future.

The constellation of the Sea Goat has a number of origins including the goat nymph that raised Zeus in hiding to protect him from his father. Amalthea, the goat nymph was rewarded for her service to Zeus’ Mother, Rhea by being put into the sky for eternity. Another Greek myth tells the story of Pan, Amalthea’s brother, half man and half goat who was turned into a fish so he might survive the waters and escape the rage of Typhon. Some myths go farther back to Babylonian times when the God Ea climbed out of the rivers he ruled in a cape of fish skin. No matter the story, there is a strong connection to Saturnalian as the ancient holiday of debauchery, gluttony, and sexual abandon fell during Capricorn season and celebrates the same God (Saturn) that rules the sign of the Sea Goat.

The ruling planet of Capricorn is Saturn which is the embodiment of time, structure, discipline, authority, boundaries, and maturity. Saturn reinforces the systematic techniques of the intentional steps used to create a lasting of Capricorn. The Saturn cycle marks our path to maturity and responsibility, taking a full 29 years to complete. Saturn is the slowest moving planet of all that can be seen by the naked eye and is also therefore the last planet that can be seen without technological support.

In our body, Capricorn rules the shins and all bones, our joints, skeletal system, and our teeth. The hardest parts of us that provide structure and perhaps remind us of the passage of time the with particular persistence.

Capricorn speaks from purpose.

The etymology of purpose describes the tension between action and intention that Capricorn must learn to articulate and embody. The urge to take action and the need to understand who, what, where, when, why, what for of it all, are at odds. As pro/por indicate the forward action of cardinality, the pauein/pausis/pausa/pausare/poser indicate the need to hold back, take pause, to place before losing track of the goal or target.

Knowing when to end calculations and take action is a lesson of Capricorn. Understanding which actions are worth taking and which costs cannot be avoided is a lesson of Capricorn. Coming to terms with ends justifying the means is a lesson of Capricorn. Balancing the urge to move into the future and hold on to valuable traditions of the past is a lesson of Capricorn.

Boundaries

The archetype of Capricorn teaches through boundaries. It can be challenging to calculate our boundaries and be discerning when it comes to how and when we spend our resources. Often we are taught lessons of boundaries by failing to hold them or by setting such impossible boundaries we must choose not to enforce them. We may learn what too much looks like by missing the indication we have gone too far by hitting our limit and facing harsh consequences. We may learn what not enough looks like my allowing ourselves to be overworked and exploited only to hit a wall of burnout too taxing to ignore. Whatever the context, we learn lessons of boundaries and limitations through the sign of Capricorn and its Ruler Saturn.

The planet Saturn is the symbol of boundaries and demonstrates as much through the structure of the planet with its rings of spinning rocks hurtling through space in an exceptionally organized format. As individuals we must learn to hold onto our own structure to protect us from being forced to conform to a shape that is inauthentic to our systems and values. Boundaries are the structure that support engagement; they are the foundation of any healthy relationship as they allow relating while upholding enough structure that all parties are able to maintain their own authenticity. By developing healthy boundaries, we conserve our own and other’s values and resources and we maintain sovereignty.

Remember:

Boundaries are the distance I can love you and me simultaneously.

We need not treat our boundaries like a series of brick walls that surround us to keep everything out. Instead, we can treat them more like a lovely home with fine doors and windows with secure latches, that is designed to invite folks in when the time and resources allow and keep out whatever or whomever depletes our resources.

Capricorn Keywords

Empowered: ambitious, paternal, pragmatic, developmental, structural, lessons of sustainability and legacy

Disempowered: elitist, high and mighty, unfeeling, singleminded, power-hungry, dissociated

Scorpio: surrender + control

The archetype of Scorpio exists on a spectrum of surrender and control. By surrendering to what cannot be controlled, by choosing power over force, by demonstrating the ability to control only the self, Scorpio can access an empowered expression of self-actualization. When we refuse to engage in a power struggle that was never ours to control in the first place, we liberate ourselves, achieving freedom from the trap of control issues that leave us disempowered and exhausted.

Scorpio manages the realms of secrets, power, trauma, sexuality, and the hidden depths. One of the most powerful commitments any of us can make is one of trust in the self and the divine, ultimately one in same.

When we swallow poison, the harm caused by another, it becomes an opportunity to heal, to tend to our wound, and process the vulnerability, the pain, the betrayal. When we offer ourselves the grace, the antidote to our wound, we make space for the healing cycle to begin. If instead, we hold on to the trauma, turning it over and over, clutching it close as a key part of our identity, we are promised greater suffering. Scorpio is a mark of the healer and in our astrological charts, it speaks to where we must heal old ancestral wounds and unearth secrets of trauma and betrayal.

Scorpio is a water sign in the fixed mode. This means that while it has all the emotional, intuitive, and liquid qualities of water, the fixed mode gives it the solid, contained, and rigid textures of the fixed mode. This can make the Scorpio uniquely capable of holding emotional truth and operating with intuitive discernment. By the same token, if we consider what it means for water to be contained and rigid, we could describe it as a block of ice or a well.

To explore the well metaphor, what happens when poison lands in a well?

The entire well is poisoned. The walls hold the water, now tainted by pain and wounding and the only solution is to find an antidote to the poison.

By holding onto the pain, the trauma of betrayal, and treachery, we keep the poisoned water of the well inside. But when we finally offer ourselves forgiveness, we become the antidote to our own suffering. Often times when we experience a brutal loss or trauma, it is not an apology or amends from the offending party that is the solution to our pain, but the forgiveness and grace we offer ourselves for not being able to protect ourselves, for not maintaining control when we so wish we could have, that will heal our wound. If we can return to ourselves, commit to trusting ourselves to craft the antidote that we need, we can transform our reality and heal.

As a master of transformation and transmutation, the Scorpio archetype is not only embodied and depicted by the form of the Scorpion but by two other incarnations.

The Scorpion

The scorpion is reactive, aggressive, sharp, and biting. It can express possessiveness, it keeps secrets, and refuses to admit emotional vulnerability. The scorpion is prone to jealousy and holds grudges, never letting go of the past, choosing instead to hold resentment and anger. In this way the scorpion can poison itself by refusing to heal from wounds it alone must tend to.

The Eagle

The eagle has achieved more liberty and perspective, no longer crawling on the earth or drinking its own poison. The eagle takes an elevated approach though still deeply judgemental and razor-sharp in its approach. The awareness and presence of the eagle is powerful and even lethal but it is still deeply self-protective and unwilling to find grace in vulnerability.

The Phoenix

Finally, the phoenix embodies the transformation of compassion for the self and the healing balm it can create. By accessing the antidote to the poison from traumas beyond its control, the phoenix can find alchemical solutions to powerlessness by asserting the power that resides within. Surrendering to what cannot be controlled and choosing to control the only entity within our control, ourselves, offers the phoenix a chance to rise from the ashes, stronger than ever before. All this can be achieved by trusting the self and relinquishing the urge to control what is beyond our power.

The magick of Scorpio is to transcend and transform through the discipline of trust. When we trust ourselves to be present and mindful through the process of healing, when we forgive ourselves for being wounded and vulnerable, we access the blessing of transformational liberation.

Scorpio speaks from desire.

As shown in the etymology of the word desire, there is something greater than wanting in the expression of desire. It is not just lust or covetousness, it is an inspiration of longing from beyond, from a heavenly body, one that is set upon a soul with celestial significance. It is a sacred wanting, the expression of desire and it can lead us to purpose.

To express desire is to be vulnerable in longing. It acknowledges a force external to our own power, one that moves us to action and inspires feeling. For Scorpio to truly embody its power, it must acknowledge its vulnerability and learn to trust in what it can control and honor what it must surrender to. Empowerment is not the absence of vulnerability but the awareness of desire, the willingness to be inspired, and the compassion to offer healing and forgiveness.

Libra: The Divine Lessons of balance

How do we describe Libra?

The divine lessons of Libra invite us to collaborate and cooperate. The trick is to avoid conjoining, losing the tension that creates the limitations required for creative success. In any good collaboration, there is true divinity in asserting individuality as much as making room for commonality. Harmony is not made beautiful simply by similarity, but through the divine tension between alignment and variance. The best collaborations allow both voices to be heard, both messages to be sent and received, both creators to be challenged, inspired, and admired in connection to a whole that is greater than the sum of either of its parts.

Libra is a love scholar that teaches us through the spectrum of individuation and cooperation. She is the most magickal when she can embody mutuality and independence in one breath.

Libra teaches us lessons of balance.

Very often we learn through the inverse; we may be taught to be gentle through experiences with roughness, we may be taught generosity through selfishness, and we may learn to value connection through lessons of isolation. Libra lessons often come from moving too far in one direction only to have the pendulum return so quickly it’s momentum carries it again, too far in the other direction.

I often witness and experience the lessons of codependency and interdependence in this same swing of the pendulum or struggle to balance scales, to add a new metaphor. For those who were challenged with parentification, who became care takers far too young, the urge to take care is now likely just as strong and the urge to reject care for ourselves. Then, as awareness and healing repair the wound, both the urgency around caring for other and the readiness to be cared for become easier, more available, and less likely to generate activation and reactivity. As things become even more balanced in the healing process, the willingness to allow others to suffer the consequences of their actions begins to expand, and new cycles in the spiral that is healing and balancing are discovered.

What does Libra look like?

She is a gallery, refined, thoughtful, full of tasteful art and reflections of aesthetic symmetry and creativity of the highest value. She is the mark of civilization, of things made legible, clarified, defined and named beautiful for their purity.

What does Libra feel like?

She is most empowered with clear and healthy boundaries. She is most exalted with structure, discipline, limitations, and a clear ethical code. She is dignified in devotion to diplomacy, cooperation, and collaboration. She if soft to the touch but cool and balanced by her careful restraint. Libra feels like the satisfaction of justice.

What does Libra taste like?

She is mild, likeable, even, and appealing. She is a well-balanced wine, refined with time. She is a perfectly ripe fruit at the balance of the equinox.

What does Libra smell like?

If Libra were a perfume she would be gentle, soothing but heady. She would be a scent that is hard to forget but never challenging. She would be clean, pure, and decisively ripe without ever becoming overpowering or unfairly assertive.

The Mythology Connected to the Libra Constellation

The constellation of Libra is considered to be the Titan Goddess Themis who was sister to Nemesis and second wife to Zeus. She is the goddess of justice, legislation, divine law, and harmony with nature. She carries a sword to cut the truth from the lies, and her scales are the symbol of the justice she upholds. Themis is the Goddess of peacemaking, balance, seeing other’s point of view, along with divine awareness, and social graces. If disregarded, it is her sister, Nemesis, who punishes. Nemesis is the consequence of failure to regard Themis and her Libra qualities.

This narrative again conjures the awareness of collaboration and balance. The Libra Titan herself does not operate alone, but she is still quite individual. She is interdependent, offering her magick in divine cooperation with her sister.

The same could be said of her relationship to Zeus. Through this collaboration she birthed the three Horai and the three Morai. While the Horai governed the measure of time, the orderliness of divine law, the Morai determined the path of fate, the purpose and the process of divine law. Even her offspring cooperate to create a sense of order, of fairness, and of divine balance.

Astrology without Causation

Coincidence and coincide…

go ahead and say each one *out loud*

When we say coincidence, it sounds like it’s something that happened by accident. But when we say things coincide the magick of the synchronicity seems more obvious, even undeniable.

Then when we look at the etymology, we can see that the word was born of an expression of agreement. The root of coincidence speaks to multiple entities occupying the same space and affirming aligned messaging. Coincidence is feeling less and less like a fluke and more and more like a significant agreement between distinct entities.

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I feel a little embarrassed when people say that a particular planet is on their side, or that they are receiving something special from a certain celestial body. What does resonate for me, however, is the thought of praying to a particular deity. As someone with Sagittarius rising, I am ruled by Jupiter, and I offer my life and devotions to Zeus. I believe that I receive support through his magick, not because he is my ruler but because I offer my awareness and intention to him and his archetypal presence. Of course, I offer my attention to Jupiter/Zeus because he is my ruler but as someone who lives with high hopes and low expectations, I intentionally reject the practice of centering myself and humans in the cosmic web.

…but that’s a whole other can of worms…

Though I am discomforted by, even afraid of determinism, astrology demands we consider and contend with the possibility that all things are predetermined. I resist this; my bias urges me to seek more evidence so that we might yet have access to free will.

The option I prefer to explore suggests that all things happen within the parameters of the context, meaning the space-time must be correct for a particular thing to occur.

Psychological and behavioral observations and studies suggest that the context of our behavior is more predictive of outcomes than who we identify as. While I believe most of us would like to think we act as we do because of who we are, our behavior is far more likely to be defined by what is within our contextual capacity. We cannot fly a plane to Lagos if we do not have a plane, do not know how to fly one, and don’t know the coordinates to Lagos.

Simply put, we do what we do based on where and when we are more than who we are.

Another example, in a train station, we are able to board a train and travel, it is the setting, the space, the context, that predicts and defines our behavior. Without the train station and train, there is no access to travel, the behaviors we enact in a train station are specific to that space, that environment. We are not simply traveling because we identify as travelers but because we are in the space that permits and determines our capacity to travel.

Just as the space is more predictive of behavior than the person enacting the behavior, it seems that the position of the stars, the celestial bodies, and the ecliptic are determined by space. The planets also must contend with the parameters of space. They then, in turn, provide data points that speak to the context of human existence and experience. This brings us to the archetypal signification of the planets and how that information can be used to contextualize ourselves within our own cultural mythologies.

Let’s use a real astrological example:

It feels far less likely that Pluto’s ingress into Aquarius is causing a shift in the collective relationship to technology but instead that it is a symbol of the inevitable shift that occurs on a technological level when the collective has reached this particular context/space-time.

The technologies available at the particular era of the Pluto ingress into Aquarius are more data points that contextualize our behavior. The environment of the current era permits women to behave in ways they were not permitted to when Pluto was in Leo in the 1940s and 50s. Pluto, with its almost 250-year cycle, represents ancestral lineages and power, because those archetypal values take significant time to manifest this is the appropriate planet to symbolize heritage, power, and spiritual influence. Astrologers use Pluto to mark generations because it takes between 12 and 24 years for the planet to move through each sign. The last time Pluto made this ingress into Aquarius was April of 1777…chew on that for a moment… the context of Pluto speaks to the historical duration of empires.

It feels to me that the spinning and expanding of the galaxies, of the universe, was always going to end up with Pluto ingressing into Aquarius during 1532, 1777, and 2023 (just to name the 3 most recent times). This is promised and this is where things get particularly deterministic.

Let’s use another real astrological example:

The conjunction of Pluto on my partner’s 0° Aquarius sun was always going to happen, from the moment he was born, even before that I suppose. This transit is not a coincidence, it was always going to coincide with the end of his Saturn return, with his 30th year, with all the elements that exist at this moment in the space-time that is his context. The shape of the space-time that he acts within. Fortunately, he was not born when Pluto was in Leo, he has not been bound by the context of the late 1930s to late 1950s, forced to contend with the context of that era as a Black man. The context of the current space-time has completely different implications and determinations of what behaviors and technologies he now has access to.

To think that Pluto is offering him something special feels dangerously close to the spiritual bypassing of #luckygirl and individualistic manifestation. I have little patience for it. However, I do believe that my husband’s experience through this transit will be well described by the same vocabulary that is inspired by a Pluto conjunction with a natal Sun. It is likely to be transformative, powerful, intense, and may have much to do with his identity and ego.

I do not make predictions because I reject any opportunity to interrupt another person's self-actualization and self-determination.

The transits are always going to keep transiting and we now live in a context with the benefit of generations of archetypal language to describe feelings and experiences that coincide with these transits. To say that we are being hurt by a planet or healed seems indulgent and self-centered in a way I cannot abide. What I am curious about is how context impacts each of us collectively and as individuals. Our experience is coinciding with the planet's position and vice versa but this does not mean it must be a causal relationship. What does appear to be a causal relationship is the space-time and available behaviors. I cannot write these ideas on my computer except in this space-time where a personal computer exists, when I have the resources to access my computer, when I have the available time to ponder these ideas…

At birth, we are all initiated into our unique yet collectively felt contexts. Our contexts are predictive of our behaviors, more so than our sense of self despite our deepest desires to access free will.

The fact of the matter is, we cannot board a train when there is no station, nor train to board. We must live in a time of trains, enter the station with enough time to board the train and have the capacity to do so. Natal charts are a way to describe and explore the unique contexts that we act within. That our lives demonstrate archetypally synchronized patterns with the celestial bodies has more to do with the contextualization of our space-time than the causation.

The Aquarius Archetype: Understanding The Water Bearer

Why is Aquarius the water bearer but an air sign?

Does understanding this peculiarity illuminate how we understand the Aquarian archetype? Let’s find out.

I was pondering this matter in preparation for Aquarius season and in honor of my husband who is born right at the very beginning of Aquarius season. Suddenly something clicked when I considered Mark Solms’ latest discoveries in neuropsychology. I highly recommend watching the linked video but the abridged version is, neuroscience has long considered the cerebral cortex to be the seat of our consciousness, however, new evidence suggests it is the brain stem, the emotional and primal locus in our brain, that is the seat of our consciousness.

It is not, as Descartes would have us believe “I think therefore I am.” But instead, it is I feel therefore I am.

Consciousness and what it is, where it is, and how we define it, is a great debate, one that has been discussed since the forums of ancient times.

Since modern science has long considered consciousness to reside in the cerebral cortex, the distinctly human part of the brain, it could be argued that this line of thinking has contributed to the human propensity for exceptionalism and even elitism. This line of thinking has been used to perpetuate eugenics and other racist theories along with distancing human beings from the rest of the animal species that occupy our Earthly habitats. In my undergraduate thesis, I posit that it is in part this exceptionalism and the language that has developed around this construct that has cost especially white folks, particularly those in America, their sustainable relationship with the environment. In an effort to distinguish white folks and whiteness from the Other and from animals, religious and political voices promoted exceptionalism and distinction from the Earth and the natural world. Today it has proven to be a convoluted challenge for white folks and many Americans to take responsibility for their impact on the environment and practices of sustainability.

In this vain, I often ask, how conscientious is the animal that destroys its own habitat?

So what if we consider Solms’ findings? What if we assume his discovery of consciousness as residing in the brain stem is correct? First, we must recognize that many many other species share this part of the brain, and next, we must consider the nature of the impulses that emanate from our brain stem. It is an emotional, instinctive core, and dare I say, an intuitive center. Suddenly it is not our intellectualism that proves our consciousness but our emotionality, our intuitive nature that confirms our consciousness. “Raw feelings are the fundamental form of consciousness,” says Solms, later explaining that this is a survival tactic. The ability to feel allows us to react appropriately to danger. If we were unable to feel suffocation, we would fail to at least attempt to remove ourselves from a burning building, for example. We do not intentionally process the notion that we are gasping for air, we feel the urgency and need to escape danger and return to the kind of breathing that requires none of our attention.

Consciousness is often associated with presence and awareness. With this and Solms’ findings in mind, I agree that feelings and our emotional experiences are our most conscious states.

It is a presence described by our responsiveness to the current moment.

Now let’s consider the elements of water and air along with their archetypes. Water represents an emotional, intuitive, and feeling archetype. Air is a cognitive, intellectual, and communicative archetype. Aquarius is an air sign, and the zodiac that is archetypally associated with systems of ideas, higher consciousness, and collective communications. For Aquarius to be a water bearer but an air sign, is, as we have established, somewhat curious if not mystifying.

So what if we consider Aquarius the water bearer, the archetype of intellectual innovation, systemic psychology, and collective understanding, the structure by which consciousness, Solms’ emotionally defined consciousness, can be contained? Without a vessel, consciousness is another ingredient in the primordial soup. But with the vessel of the Aquarian, the emotional consciousness can be carried, contained, and sustained. It is not at all that the Aquarian is an emotional archetype but instead that it is the one that offers a container for emotionality, thus giving space and form to our collective consciousness.

As a symbol of consciousness, of communal understanding, and mass communication, Aquarius forms the vessel, to bear the water of emotions, of consciousness.

Higher Power + Natal Charts

A professor of genetics once taught me that evolution does not behave linearly.

That is to say, while there is something to the concept of survival of the fittest, genetic mutations or the causes and effects within a sequence of genes are not exclusively ruled by this concept of survival of the fittest. Instead, there is a fifty percent chance that the fittest or ‘more favorable’ genetic outcome occurs and a fifty percent chance the outcome is random, something totally unexpected or even expected and feared. So it’s just as likely all goes according to a positivist evolutionary trajectory and as it is something beyond our understanding occurs, something seemingly random. This served to completely challenge my understanding of the matrix and all her processes. While I had once felt a type of certainty that there was a direction to it all, “an arc to the moral universe [... one that] bends toward justice” as Mart Luther King Jr. said, I was now forced to move my conceptualization of the Universe into a new dimension. I would later find it was not just a new dimension but more dimensions, that must be contended with in order to gain a satisfactory perspective on whatever the Universe is and what we’re all doing here. 

I don’t claim to have all the answers by any means. However, I have a take that allows me a sense of peace I have never accessed before.

In a small college dorm room, several hours into a psychedelic trip and sprawling on any surface that could support our languid and extraterrestrial bodies, I once asked a friend what his definition of God was. He answered more succinctly than I could have ever anticipated.

“God is omnipotent and omniscient.”

…I’ve been chewing on this premium definition ever since. 

If God is omnipotent and omniscient which I feel is the most all-encompassing definition of God and therefore the most appealing and accessible definition of god I have ever found… then God cannot be an entity but instead a process. The only way, at least according to my lil human mind, God could know everything and be everything is for God to be happening over time. Of course, time is one of those mystifying constructs that proves increasingly difficult to understand; linear or otherwise, from our human perspective, time certainly appears to be a process, to have a trajectory, to have some version of a direction even if that is in a multidimensional weblike context. God cannot be omnipotent and omniscient in a static or singular way, it must span time as well, stretching across all dimensions.

The God of the Hebrew Bible (the oldest definition of God I have a relationship with) is in everything, is of everything, and created all. This God is the creator of everything at the same time it is everything. We (Jews) owe our gratitude, awe, and respect to everything, from the smallest stone to the greatest mountain range, from the most brilliant invention to the most humble craft, because it is all God. These two definitions fit quite nicely together, in order for this God to be both omnipotent and omniscient, we must all be God, everything must be God. In fact, in order for God to know everything and be everything, we all must live out our experiences, embody our realities, and be ourselves. All entities from events to animal bodies, constructs to political movements, geological periods to ideas and equations, are God.

It was through this line of thinking that I came to consider natal charts as the most divine filing system, keeping track of every iteration of God. Everything, from a question to an entity, to an event, can have an astrological chart cast for it. Every entity, animal, mineral, and temporal, has a chart that marks its identity as well as trajectory. It’s like a map to that iteration of God; it is the responsibility of that entity to embody those lessons, that vantage point, those coordinates, characteristics, and context. Each natal chart is a depiction of a particular time and space in the galaxy that is interpreted through the multicultural archetypes that have developed over millennia.  A natal chart might just be our contract with the Universe to embody our context in order to participate in the multi-dimensional project that is God. Each of us and everything in between has a chart that acts as a key or blueprint to our nature, our highest self, and the lessons we must learn in our specific timescape.

As we embrace our most connected and aware selves, we contribute to the omniscience and omnipotence that is God.

Finally, to bring this concept into the realm of wellness and mental health. For me, this conceptualization of the Universe and God has allowed the kind of acceptance and humor I have often sought in my most embittered and disillusioned states. If we conceive of ourselves as a version of God, tasked with the lessons we must learn and opportunities that we must take in order for God to know what that reality is like, we may find some grace on our path. Not only are we divine in our own right, but we are living with the purpose of a sacred mission, as part of a numinous collective, not simply aware of a higher power but living as our most empowered and highest self.  

From my perspective, I am but a product of my context. I exist only as an expression of the heritage of causes and effects that have created this particular timespace. My joy, my trauma, my power, are all contained within the context that I occupy, and that context is perfectly articulated by my natal chart. I then have the opportunity to play with this context, test its bounds and challenge its assumptions, all in an effort to engage in the games of the Universe, in the omnipotence and omniscience of God.