Author: shadowlightconsulting

The moon’s nodes are the points at which the path of the sun and the path of the moon intersect. They could be likened to the extreme points of a pendulum’s swing. These extremes are known as the north and south nodes. In astrology, the moon’s nodes represent prevailing cultural trends and attitudes. It takes eighteen and a half years for the nodes to progress through all twelve signs of the zodiac. Each sign of the zodiac represents unique characteristics of human behavior. Each sign has a positive and negative expression and is ruled by the sun, the moon, or a planet.

The moon rules Cancer – the Great Mother, the Mother of God. She rules the emotions, the irrational, the instincts, intuition, the night, and the unconscious. She is the synchronicities emanating from the collective unconscious. In fact, she is the collective unconscious.

Being feminine, she creates the atmosphere of co-operation, community and relatedness. In her positive expression, she is inclusive, nurturing and protective. In her negative expression, she is exclusive, ruthless, and vengeful. She is archetypal, and therefore, not gender exclusive. She is expressed through men as well as women.

When hospitals, police departments and insane asylums increase their staff during the full moon, they are preparing for the irrational frenzy that is her festival. They are preparing for an attack of lunacy. At these times, all manner of unconscious material mounts with great force into our conscious world. Then, despite our conscious intentions, this material can overwhelm us en masse and the psychic infection erupts into a riot.

Psychic infection is a malady that has been with us throughout history. Adolph Hitler was a genius in his ability to manipulate the masses. Hitler believed or understood that the masses were run by feminine instinct. By catering to the dark side of the feminine, he roused its fears and vengeful rage and unleashed a psychic plague that infected an entire nation and ultimately the whole world. As a master of mass hypnosis, he intentionally seduced the masses by making people feel comfortable with their prejudices. Then he would whip them up into an emotional frenzy. At the height of this mesmerization, he could implant the most bizarre suggestions into the unconscious and the individual isolated in the masses was virtually powerless to resist the tide of mob rule.

Mark Twain once said, “Insanity in individuals is something rare. In groups and nations, it is the norm.” Carl Jung, founder of analytic psychology, defined the insanity in groups and nations as a “cultural psychosis.” The dominant trait in any psychotic is the inability to recognize the validity of another’s right to be. When the collective value system of a culture does not recognize the validity of another’s right to exist, that culture is suffering from a collective psychosis. When that level of psychic infection prevails, intuition is reduced to paranoia and the instinct to protect becomes the psychosis of a mindless predator.

The moon’s south node represents past attitudes; the north node represents future trends. When a planet conjuncts either node, it pulls energy in that direction and flavors that node with the archetypal essence or the god/goddess that the planet represents. On September 11, 2001, Jupiter and Mars were in opposition and conjuncting both lunar nodes at the same time. Jupiter, the God of Philosophy and Religion, was conjuncting the north node in Cancer, The Great Mother. Mars, the God of War, was conjuncting the south node in Capricorn, The Father of Law and Order or The Law of Karma.

In the light of 9/11, this could be interpreted as a trend towards religious fanaticism and philosophical conflict resulting from obsolete law and past injustice. It would be nice to think that humanity has evolved beyond the need for Jihads and Crusades. But, alas, it seems that this is not the case. This psychic plague must run its course.

There is little an individual can do in the midst of lunacy other than remain true to one’s Self. Ultimately, individuals are responsible for their own actions. In order to be truly responsible for one’s action, it is necessary to differentiate the experience of Self from the collective attitudes and social scripts that dictate most of our behaviors.

In an individual’s astrological chart, the moon’s nodes can show the path that leads to an experience of the Self that is independent of social trends and collective attitudes. In the final analysis, the soul’s ultimate responsibility is to out-grow the dictates of mass psychology.

Bill J. Fleming

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.

1. “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)
2. “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)
3. “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)
4. “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)
5. “You are the wondrous machine that can turn around in your foot steps, look back into yourself and fully understand yourself.” (Deepak Chopra)
6. “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” (Viktor E. Frankl)
7. “Interior silence is very difficult, but we must make the effort. In silence we will find new energy and true unity. (Mother Teresa)
8. Self-realization comes before God realization. (Maharaj Charan Singh)
9.  “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

In 1872, a Lakota medicine man named Black Elk had a vision. Here is an excerpt of that vision in his own words, quoted from Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt. “A voice said, ‘Behold this day, for it is yours to make. Now you shall stand upon the center of the earth to see…’ Then I stood on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy.”

Where is this “I” that sees more than it can tell and understands more than it sees? Wherever it is, its perspective must be greater than our collective attitudes, beliefs and assumptions. Our language has been developed in order to define our worldview and to sustain a collective value system. If “I” see more than I can tell, I perceive a reality that is beyond the collective ego’s ability to define or describe. If “I” understand more than I see then I have access to information that is primal to the visible world or manifest universe.

To “see in a sacred manner” is to see through the eye of the mystics. The mystics say the origin of this sacred sight is “the all Seeing Eye,” the “sovereign I,” the “I am that I am,” the “third eye,” the “eye center.” Where is this eye that can see more than it can tell? The kingdom of heaven is within you.

“Now you shall stand upon the center of the earth to see…” From your individual perspective, you stand at the center of the world. Look in any direction in a 360° hoop. You are the central point where everything you are not intersects. Your outline is the inline of everything else. That line between in and out is your ego-lens. In an astrological chart, that central point is indicated by the “rising sign.” The ascendant, as it is also called, determines the structure of the whole chart. The astrology chart is a two-dimensional representation or blue print of your entire psyche/soma structure – “the shape of all shapes.” The hoop, the circle, is the most complete representation of the Total Self possible in a two dimensional form.

The ascendant is determined by calculating when and where you were born (when=time, where=space.) With your first breath, you entered the time space continuum – with a unique perspective and gifts that only you can provide.

In many eastern philosophies, the time/space continuum is defined as the web of Maya (illusion.) The web of Maya is a philosophical construct we use to define the phenomenal world. “The hoop of the world” is an illusion, an inadequate, limited psychological construct to describe the indescribable spirit of all things that “must live together like one being.”

You are not who you think you are. Your personality is an ego-mask you imagined in order to interact with a collective fantasy. You are far more than you pretend to be. You are a mystery. You are an aspect of a Great Sacred Mystery. When you extract your attention from the collective fantasy and assemble it in the heart of the mysterious being that you are, you will see in a sacred manner “the shapes of all things in the spirit.” And, from that secret place of the most high, you will see “round about beneath [you] the whole hoop of the world,” “a hoop of many hoops,” and “what is holy” in this holographic universe – “wide as daylight and as starlight.”

The day, the hour, the minute you were born a mysterious event occurred. A divine child of the “one mother and one father” crossed the event horizon and got lost in a bizarre fantasy. Your job is to remember who you were then, are now and always will be. Behold this day, this hour, this minute, this unique perspective – for that day is yours to make.

Bill J. Fleming

The difference between Depth Astrology and Mundane or Predictive Astrology is that the latter tends to approach the individual from the point of view of how the personality interacts with the external events in one’s life. In Depth Astrology, the focus is on the internal psychology of an individual and how that affects the perception of external events.

The planetary aspects at the time of our birth could be likened to the ingredients of a chemical or alchemical experiment. Baked in the caldron of life, these ingredients (aspects) are experienced as fate in the outside world. However, this so-called fate is in actuality the by-product or reflection of our internal reality. Most people come to astrology out of a desire to manipulate their fate. They assume if they can understand the external planetary influences, they can control – as if by magic – the environment in order to get rich, healthy or laid. The focus of Depth Astrology is to understand our fate, not cheat it – to gain mastery not control.

From the perspective of the individual, she/he is the center of their universe. The universe, the zodiac, is the matrix we are born out of and return to. The Webster’s Dictionary describes matrix as: (L. womb) something within which something else originates or develops. The individual develops out of everything they are not. In the final analysis, we are stardust. It could be said, this individuated human form is the divine offspring of heaven and earth. From that perspective, the melodramas of the collective value system shrink into insignificance. Excessive ego involvements and control issues become childish in the light of the authentic self.

We all are on a mission of self-discovery whether we realize it or not. The search for the pearl of great price, the treasure beyond measure, the divine child within, is the point of Depth Astrology. The individual astrological chart is looked upon as a treasure map leading to the deepest authentic being, the Self, that always has been and always will be. The self that is here to manifest, not here to live up to anyone else’s expectation, is our destination. The individual chart is a personal navigation device to assist the pilgrim on this quest.

All this is nothing more than a utopian ideal unless we are willing to do the hard work of stripping off the mask of socially accepted pretense and its attendant self-deception. That is an extremely hard row to hoe.

For something to live, something else must die. Physically, for us to live we must eat. What we eat is another’s life. We often hear, “This place is teeming with life.” Our selective memory allows us to ignore the fact that for a place to be teeming with life, it of necessity must be teeming with death. Similarly, on a psychological level in order to sustain a series of attitudes and beliefs, with their attendant facades, something else in the psyche must die. That may be well and good as long as the cost does not exceed the payoff. However, if we have become identified with a façade, the price is certain to be our authentic self-expression. It is amazing that we humans are so concerned about appearing to be self–centered when the fact is we are not nearly Self-centered enough.

The so-called “hard aspects” in the chart of an individual represent the psychological stresses that most people try to ignore, avoid or suppress. “Hold on pilgrims.” There be treasure here. The hard aspects indicate the areas in life that something should die or be let go of in order for something more appropriate to manifest. This is inevitably experienced as frightening at first but after a time begins to feel like a daring life affirming adventure.

When we operate out of the assumption or belief that we can manipulate or control others, we are unconsciously affirming that others can control us. That notion produces a powerful resentment in the deeper stratums of the psyche. As this resentment increases, we become more and more entangled in the power trips of controlling others while resisting being controlled. The fact is we have very little control over others. However, we have the potential for complete mastery of ourselves. The pity is as we continue to fight these losing battles we are losing a winning battle.

We are the darlings of the universe with an incomprehensible capacity for un-conditional love. All we need do is learn how to let go of the conditioning that separates us from our true self. Depth Astrology can help.

Bill J. Fleming

“This above all: To thine own self be true, and it must follow – as the night the day – thou cans’t not be false to any man.”

~From “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare

 

 

 

 

 Astrology is a symbolic language. Its alphabet is made up of symbols. Its context is mythological. Its content is metaphorical. For sure, it uses a lot of math and statistical data. Astrological analysis, however, is intended to transcend the data through its symbolic imagery.

In Man and His Symbols, C. G. Jung wrote: “Thus a word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. It has a wider ‘unconscious’ aspect that is never precisely defined or fully explained. Nor can one hope to define or explain it. As the mind explores the symbol, it is lead to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.”

Scientists and lay people alike spend an enormous amount of their precious time in debunking and invalidating astrology by insisting that we speak a language of measure and mean. If it cannot be qualified or quantified, and by definition made to fit within the “strict limitations of the scientific methods,” it cannot be valid. As an astrologer, who speaks a symbolic language, I feel a bit like the Native American child who gets his mouth washed out with soap for speaking his own language. A symbolic language is not A language of measure and mean, but one of myth and metaphor.

On the subject of mythology, Jung wrote, “Myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science. Science works with concepts of averages which are far too general to do justice to the subjective variety of an individual life.”

There is a huge problem in the way we define myth in our culture. The connotation is that myth is synonymous with a lie or a childish fairytale. Mythology is the metaphorical essence of who we are collectively as well as individually. Myth and metaphor ways to speak of the essence that is more than can be defined. Mythology is a symbolic language that finite consciousness can use to communicate the transcendent nature of our Being.

When we meet someone for the first time we say, “How do you do?” and before long we ask, “What do you do?” We seldom ask, “Who are you?” It doesn’t take long to define our self in terms of what we do and how we do it. Who we are cannot be defined – simply because the whole is more than the sum of its parts and the parts are the only things that can be defined. Each of us is more than can be described. Therefore, each of us is an indescribable Being.

If a man says, “I am a Texan,” he is identifying with the mythology of Texas – and I don’t mean Texas history. His Texas accent is the tone of the Texas spirit. That essence is a huge part of his self-expression. He is identified with “something larger” than his finite Being and that something larger is only part of his “personal” mythology.

To illustrate astrologically: Once upon a time, there was a young lady who had been raised by upper middle-class parents. Her parents made sure she had everything she needed and that she got a good education. After college, she married a good man, bought her own house and had a beautiful baby boy. Everything was perfect according to the only worldview she had ever known. One day, while looking out her window at her perfect child, perfect husband and perfect car, she was wondering why she wasn’t happy. She went to see an astrologer.

After a while, the astrologer said, “Oh, I see. You have limited yourself to living out of a prescribed stereotype instead of your personal mythology.” The astrologer told her there were strong indicators in her chart that she was a frustrated researcher with a powerful spirit for adventure. The spirit of adventure is to go beyond the known world. The astrologer said, “There is a wide world out there full of enthusiastic researchers of like mind. Go find them. Go play with them.” She did. She later said, “I knew there was something better, but what I found is beyond the scale of what I thought was possible.” This is a true story. It is also a true myth because she is still living the life- affirming adventure prescribed by her personal mythology.

The only way to know the indescribable Being that you are is by recognizing your capacity to transcend the limitations of a prescribed stereotype.

Astrology is a language that uses symbols as metaphors for every aspect of life. Here every aspect of life takes on an imagery that “lead[s] to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.” You are here to live out your own mythology not someone else’s. You can identify yourself as an “American consumer” if you like. You are far more than that.

If you wish to explore the depths of your being by expanding your awareness of your personal mythology, Depth Astrology can help.

-Bill J. Fleming

When human consciousness first began to expand beyond the immediate struggle for survival, it was the result of observing the inherent balance between heaven and earth. The more we contemplated the seasons and aligned our behavior with the intrinsic cosmic order, the more we flourished on earth. For millennia, we attuned ourselves through initiation rites and ceremonies with the precession of the constellations. From the Native American Sun Dance to the Celtic rituals in stone circles throughout Europe, from the Egyptian ceremonies associated with the helical rising of Sirius (the herald of the Nile’s flooding) to the astrological alignments of pyramids and mounds around the world, we synchronized our activities with the cosmos by constructing microcosmic models of the macrocosm. Humanity has invested a great deal of time and energy in constructing these multi-dimensional and multi-sensory learning devices. They are, in essence, psychosomatic teaching platforms.

It is difficult to describe the indelible psychological impact of seeing, for the first time, the summer solstice sunrise, on a mountaintop at ten thousand feet as a shaft of pristine golden white light shoots across the axis of the Big Horn Medicine Wheel. Or, of viewing the spectacular display of mid-summer’s day at Stonehenge in England and other megalithic observatories around the world. These are high tech environmental sculptures designed to demonstrate the interactions of heaven and earth employing an extremely sophisticated interplay of light and shadow. Clearly the intention of our forebears was to reveal the presence of dynamic living archetypes (primal energy patterns) through these remarkable structures. Our ancestors have bequeathed to us these monuments as a reminder of our inherent holographic connections with all of creation.

Deeply imbedded in our human psyche, and even encoded in our DNA, are the sleeping giants of humanity’s archetypal memories. Ancient voices are constantly speaking to us through our collective unconscious. We are rich with the blessing of the ages. We are human beings capable of self-realization through contemplation. We are the only offspring of heaven and earth capable of recognizing our origins and place in the universe. Yet, these days instead of pondering the great sacred mysteries, we spend most of our time engaged in activities that produce a profound discontent.

We have eclipsed the night sky with city lights and desensitized ourselves to the seasons with artificial environments. Our modern conveniences have provided us with a life style our ancestors could not have imagined, but where did all our time go and what is all this anxiety about? Our calendars are used for commerce and expedience. They used to be our context for comprehension, integration and celebration. When we belittle the enormous investment our ancestors made on our behalf by calling it primitive or superstitious, we are severing the taproot to the deepest stratums of our being.

Astrology today, like the crumbling architecture of those magnificent ancient structures, is only a fractured remnant of what it was originally intended to be. Be that as it may, astrology is still a living, functioning artifact. The reawakening of ancient technologies, as understood through the modern sciences of archeology, astronomy and psychology, is beginning to unearth some remarkable tools for the depth astrologer. The original intent of astrology/astronomy was to understand our fate, not to cheat it. No one can tell us if we are going to get married and live happily ever after or not. The best anyone can do is to assist us in the pursuit of our most authentic self-expression. Success in any endeavor can only be defined by the individual entity’s definition of success. Whether that entity is a group, family, or individual, self-determination is the key. The potential for success is enhanced through an awareness of the powerful dynamics operating within and around that essential self. Astrology can be a very useful instrument for discovering and defining those dynamics.

Through archaeoastronomy and astrology our ancestors are reminding us that our physical and psychological well-being is dependent on a wholesome relationship with the sleeping giants in whom we live and breathe and have our being. From the deepest stratums of our psyche to the highest regions of the cosmos, we are holographically connected.  We are human beings, the darlings of the universe, the divine offspring of heaven and earth and self-realization is our birthright.