In Depth Astrology, the astrological chart is not a crystal ball for fortune telling. It’s a mandala for discovering a personal mythology. Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning a holy circle or an enclosed space that is a symbol of perfect wholeness. The birth chart is a circle of mythological images – a mandala, a personal mythological context. From the moment of our first breath, this mandala begins to unfold in a variety of cycles with divergent and convergent aspects. The Self is the central character in this kaleidoscope of the unfoldment of a perfect whole.
“There is a time for every purpose under heaven.” Our lifetime has a purpose. That purpose is the context of our life. What we do is the content. Our future and past are simply the unfoldment of the same script in every aspect of our life. The definition of a context is an abstract psychological environment — that weaves together, what might at first appear to be, random chaos into a cohesive whole. The definition of a myth is a story that explains a behavior, belief, or natural phenomena. A personal myth is a personal story or psychological context that reveals a coherent philosophical whole.
To be sure, astrology can be used to predict the future, but that won’t tell us very much about who we are. On the other hand, using astrology to analyze the past patterns and cycles of our life can tell us a great deal about who we are. When we understand our own psychological context, we don’t need somebody else to tell us what to do. Ultimately, the question: “What should I do?” is not as important as, “Who am I.” When we live out of our personal mythology, we project ourselves into the future. We don’t worry about it. The better we understand our Self, the easier it is to know where to go and what to do. We can surf the wave of an unfolding perfection or tumble around in it. There is nothing we can do that will have the slightest effect on that unfoldment. We cannot control our fate, but we can master it by putting it in a mythological context.
As we get older, and look back over our life, it becomes easier to see the patterns and synchronistic events of some mysterious intention. If we “religio”, link back to, significant convergent and divergent events in our life and ask our self what epiphany happened here, what revelation occurred there, we begin to see a picture of a larger context running the show. That show, that story, is the script of the unfoldment of our personal mythology.
- “Myths are public dreams. Dreams are private myths. By finding your own dream, and following it through, it will lead you to the myth world in which you live.” (Joseph Campbell)
- “We are born at a given moment, in a given place and, like vintage years of wine, we have the qualities of the year and of the season of which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything more.” (Carl Jung)
- “A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” (Albert Einstein)
- “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
- “You are the wondrous machine that can turn around in your foot steps, look back into yourself and fully understand yourself.” (Deepak Chopra)
- “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” (Viktor E. Frankl)
- “Interior silence is very difficult, but we must make the effort. In silence we will find new energy and true unity. (Mother Teresa)
- Self-realization comes before God realization. (Maharaj Charan Singh)
- “Femininity is taking responsibility for who I am, not only what I do, not how I seem to be, not what I accomplish. When all the doing is done, I have to face myself in my naked reality. However veiled, the feminine is always naked.” (Marion Woodman)
Through out time, our ancestors have been telling us: when all the doing is done, self-realization is the boon of a human life. Self-realization is our birthright.
Bill J. Fleming
ShadowLight Consulting Services 