Invisible Realms in Celtic Spirituality

I’m reluctant to leave this place that is so embedded with Celtic Spirituality! I took one more solitary walk before leaving the island, and took a photo of a spiral stone-- it reminded me how the Celts experience the Divine as a tender force, not visible, but present in all things. Such a sweet reminder! The world of nature was a constant companion to them--and as the Irish poet, John O’Donohue, said: “the Celts remind us that we need a gentle light where the Soul can be sheltered and reveal its ancient belonging”. He went on to say that beauty often likes neglected places, and Lindisfarne has felt this way.



I love the idea that we can find beauty and the presence of God in the invisible world in nature, and also, in being soul-friends to each other. The Irish Celts called that soul friend an “anam cara”. I hope I can be that for both Kendra and Sophie. Interesting to think how astrologers could be seen as professional “anam caras”…I hope to be that for Kendra through our letters. And I feel so grateful that Sophie has agreed to go together on this journey to Whitby. I wonder if we can hold that “anam cara” quality for each other while we look among the sacred stones there?



I love the idea too, that when we choose to look, we can “find the sacred in the commonplace”—like finding beauty in a shell or carved stone, or a forest fern that’s spiraled and nestled into a stone wall. It’s as if God remembers itself in the beauty of nature, and so by observing the invisible messages there, we hear the voice of a soul-friend. Nature can be one’s “anam cara.”



I think people who are born in the astrological “Earth Signs” of Capricorn, Virgo and Taurus often have an innate awareness of this. Having no planets in earth signs in my chart, I compensate for this, since I know I lack what the Jungians would call this “sensate” quality. But my North Node in Taurus reminds me that finding the sacred in the sensual good things of this earth is simply good medicine for me…maybe that’s why I love pottery and wooden spoons so much…! Hm…. Kendra has her North Node in Leo which holds the life force of the Sun—it’s as if her homeopathic North Node medicine would be to nurture herself on the warmth of the Sun. I wonder if she’s emailed me yet—I better check--

Lindisfarne to Whitby

Dear Kendra~

I’m so sorry I dropped our writing correspondence when all this happened with Sophie. I suspect with your Moon in Cancer, squaring Pluto, you might be sensitive to anything that feels like abandonment or neglect. If I hadn’t finally phoned you from Lindisfarne to catch up on my “disappearance” I would have felt very guilty! But here we are again, and I will get over my private feelings of needing to keep up any appearances –-even in the holding of the teacher/mentor persona….that ‘persona’ part of me that likes having it “all together” just because I’m teaching astrological correspondences. As you know, a persona is a mask, and astrologically we see it described in the Rising Sign, but even with my courageous Aries rising, I feel that I am as much a “Foolish Warrior” as a “Wise Woman.”



Since we last spoke, Sophie got out of the hospital and joined Alistair and I for a few days at Lindisfarne. The first night she was back, the Christian ‘retreatants’ did a healing prayer circle for her that touched my heart, and seemed to do wonders for Sophie. As we stood in a circle with our arms and hands touching each other, it felt as if there was such a connecting energy with spirit, that I must admit--- it just about undid my old religious skepticism, and even my ideas about “how it all is and how it’s always going to be” between us as a family. I guess you could say I felt hope. I know now I want to be reconnected with Alistair and Sophie again— in a different way. I see now how much I need to deepen my sense of faith in “Spirit”—perhaps that’s why I’ve been a bit of a reluctant astrologer…



Today I was thinking how astrologers come from all religious traditions…yet astrologers have always been the “black sheep” in any religious or political systems, yet we seem to enjoy our position as “honored outsiders” and have managed not to be slaughtered too often…except with the great holocaust of the witches and midwives! In other eras, we’d be kept in a “private position” by Kings and Popes and Statesmen, but people usually prefer to keep their private astrologers to themselves. We’re a bit taboo….



Anyway, Alistair and I spent a lot of time walking around this “holy isle” yesterday and soaking in all its sunlit quaintness. There are monastery ruins here that go back to the 7th century, founded by St Aidan, and we learned about the hermit and healer, St Cuthbert, and how he used solitude as his way of connecting to Christ. And…I heard Alistair muttering at some point (quoting Krishnamurti,) about how “Truth is a pathless land” when an over-zealous pilgrim was showing us a sacred site.



You know, I actually like Alistair’s blend of Buddhist philosophy and Krishnamurti (you remember him?--the anti-guru Guru who was so popular in the sixties and seventies?). Alistair’s beliefs move him out of religion into “spirituality” anchor him in the present moment. Being aware and awake in the NOW is what’s so important for him, and I like that. But he doesn’t allow himself to “get astrology” and I don’t think Sophie quite understands either of us. As you know, astrology is about the ability to think symbolically and to make connections between different levels of consciousness—between the inner and the outer life. Synchronistic connections. And maybe it’s up to me to find the connecting threads between Alistair, Sophie and me. And for me to pay more attention to what Jung called “the Self”—the inner Self.



Anyway, as the day was winding down, around sunset, the wind picked up into quite a howl, so we found refuge in a little pub in town—and that’s when Alistair told me that he’s leaving for Zurich, Switzerland tomorrow! For a Krishnamurti gathering…a conference.



“So where does that leave us?” I asked him, astonished by this unexpected news.



“It’s up to you….I don’t know. Would you and Sophie like to go there?” He seemed a little nervous.



“Of course, that would be nice, but why would Sophie want to go there? And do you really want me there?” Some of my skepticism returned. He nodded yes, but I could feel a reluctance there.



“Or…” I began, “Maybe Sophie and I could go south to Whitby first, and then make our way slowly to you…. do you remember our trip there when we were first married? Do you remember St Hilda’s monastery on those cliffs towering above the ocean? Whitby was where the Christian Celts and the Roman Catholics had their big “show-down”–the Synod of Whitby-- where the pagan-Christian Celts lost “philosophically” to the Roman Catholics. There’s such a numinous feeling in the monastery ruins there—how they sit so high on the cliffs overlooking the sea. What do you think?”



Alistair nodded his head thoughtfully. We smiled like we were cooking up a scheme or a broth of spiritual treats for Sophie. “Women were such a big part of the Celtic Christianity then, and maybe the romance of Whitby could create a bridge…maybe Sophie and I could go there first, and then…..” I trailed off trying to imagine into the future and stared up at another Celtic Cross on the far wall—even in the dark pub—(!) and thought how much it looked like Jung’s mandalas. “Maybe we could go from there to visit you….and see Jung’s house outside of Zurich?”



“Maybe….! But take it slowly, Isabelle, see how it goes…. I’ve planned to be there for awhile. You know how those gatherings are….but, yes, I’d love to have you both come….”



And so, I turned to Alistair and gave his hand a squeeze. All I could think of at that moment, was Thoreau’s words: “We are constantly invited to be who we are.” And who would that be now?



So, dear Kendra, that’s how it’s been going! Send me news of you~

Love,

Isabelle

Private Journal at Lindisfarne

I’m here—on the “Holy Island” of Lindisfarne staying at the room Sophie reserved for herself at the Christian Retreat Center, while she’s at the hospital on the main-land. This is all too strange. There’s a lovely Celtic Cross hanging above the wooden writing table, and I love the feel of it here—I can even see the white-capped ocean waves through the diamond leaded glass windows. But—it also feels like some horrid dream. This is not the way I would have wanted to visit this mystical place…I should have been traveling with Sophie, not alone, not this way—and not with Alistair in the next room.



The plane from Boston landed early this morning, and I didn’t get to the hospital till noon. Sophie was conscious although looking exhausted—who wouldn’t be after a concussion? And her right arm was hurting her— the monk from the abbey who pulled her out of the water twisted it slightly—he must have been very strong to be able to carry her to the mainland, and then—what a dear-- he carried her on foot, straight-way to the hospital! They say he’s been living here on Lindisfarne for thirty years.



Sophie managed a shy smile when I entered her room. As I hugged her, my eyes filled with tears…tears of the fear and guilt of a mother who hadn’t saved her daughter. Instead, Sophie had to console me, telling me she was fine, really fine, but she didn’t look fine. And I didn’t even notice at first that Alistair was already sitting there, leaning over with his head in his hands, a slight distance from her bed. Talk about strange…what a way for Sophie to see her parents together again after five years! Alistair’s hair looked wispier and grayer, and he didn’t seem as put-together as he used to look, but he still had the Irish cap in his lap…the one I had given him the year before we separated. My heart went out to him—and then pulled back as I struggled to find words….



Alistair had always been good with quick words, with his Gemini Moon and Sagittarius Rising, but all his Gemini “airiness” and Sagittarian self-confidence was overshadowed by the detached coolness often expressed by his Aquarius Sun. When I was ill and going through menopause, he hadn’t known how to be there for me. The day I told him I had to drive to Boston to find out definitively whether I had breast cancer of not, he said didn’t want to “support me in my fear” as this was my drama, not his. A friend went with me instead, as I found out I was not a victim of cancer, but to a broken heart. I left Alistair soon after that day, and it’s now been five years. No divorce, but little connection. He moved to Ojai, California to the Krishnamurti Center there, and I opened my astrology office in the historic section of Newport, Rhode Island. No divorce, but no connection, except through Sophie.



Alistair hadn’t been able to listen--but now here we were again, staring at each other—feeling everything, and neither of us had any words. My Libra nature couldn’t balance or harmonize anything, in fact, it felt like the weirdness factor had just gone off the charts. There was no way to make this look normal. Here we were: Isabelle, the astrologer meets again with Alistair, the Buddhist-Krishnamurti-ite, over the bedside of their Christian fundamentalist daughter who’s apparently had a near-death experience.



“Anyone for tea?” the nurse sprightly asked as she rushed into the room with her request for the tradition of British civility--we all burst into laughter. It felt so sweet for a moment, and I swear the caffeine in the pot of Earl Gray tea felt like a small miracle.





As we fumbled around talking as “normal” as possible and it seemed as if Sophie was becoming more and more pleased that we were both there. She had hated our separation, never understood it, and—for a moment I imagined this as a grand strategy to reunite us. Sophie was a bright, moody, and sometimes manipulative Scorpio—I’d never say that to her or to my Scorpio student, dear Kendra! But after our tea and awkward conversation of basic facts that made no sense-- Sophie convinced us that she was doing well enough, that Alistair and I should go and get some rest— stay out on the island for a few days since we had come so far. It made about as much sense as everything else, so we agreed and left together.



As if traveling 4000 miles to see your near-drowned daughter and ex-husband wasn’t weird enough, here’s where I lost my mind! When we got back to the place where we could have driven out to the island, we found we had missed the opportunity to get there as the fast tides had covered the road, and had landlocked the island yet again, so we were told we were going to have to wait till the next morning.



“Well,” I said to Alistair, “Let’s walk out together and see what Sophie was trying to do…on her pilgrimage and all that—“ So we began walking around in the cold inlet with our pants rolled up, feeling the powerful surge of the waters rushing around our legs and the pebbly sands trying to bury our feet. What were we doing? Trying to relive her experience?



Suddenly I felt Alistair’s hand take mine--“Isabelle, I don’t think our story is over yet.” His voice was a whisper, tentative, questioning. I didn’t know what he was talking about at first, but as I looked up I could see tears in his eyes. I squeezed his hand while staring down at the swirling waters at our feet. I wondered: how does one let go of five years of separation, of grieving? Does forgiveness happen in an instant? And so we stood there, looking like a distant portrait of two children holding hands in the ocean, till someone started yelling at us and summoning us back to shore. We pleaded with them to take us by small boat to the island…..



And now, I sit at this desk, writing in my journal, trying to make sense of things…with Alistair in the next room to me….each in our own monk’s cell.



I am shocked that we are all “feeling together” again. When Alistair and I separated, we used to talk about his inability to know what he was feeling and express it—or even to listen with his heart instead of his head. Alistair’s South Node in the pragmatic sign of Capricorn and North Node in Cancer, would have had a hard time embracing the emotionality/sensitivity of his North Node Cancer. He was very much a left-brain man, as a craftsman and arm-chair philosopher--- but me? Since when is a Libra woman with an Aries Moon, such a “feeler” anyway? —I’m more of a spiritual warrior if anything. Even if my Sun in Libra conjuncts Neptune, it doesn’t mean I’m so empathic or freed from my own illusions. Hmph. And my South Node in Scorpio would get sucked into dark drama at times, and forget the healing pull and serenity of my Taurus North Node.



Well, writing seems to help sort it all out…. Or does it? I feel dizzy with shifting sands, silence…fear. How can I write Kendra about this? How do I keep up my teaching Wise Woman persona with her when my world is dissolving and shifting too rapidly for words? I’m exhausted. Sleep calls….

Lindisfarne

Oh Kendra~


I got a call from the British hospital late last night about Sophie. She had gone on “pilgrimage” to Lindisfarne—which she’d never told me about— I had no idea that her dream to walk to the Holy Island ‘through the waters’ to her sacred site meant crossing dangerous undertows of incredibly fast tides. I had no idea she planned to walk at night, by herself through the waters—it was a New Moon last night, and it must have been very dark. I still don’t know if she knew how many “pilgrims” had died this way; people like her, who didn’t swim, and got caught in the undertow.

Was she risking all for God? Was she depressed? Manic? Suicidal or---“enraptured”?



I’m leaving tomorrow….they said she had a concussion and was barely conscious by the time someone found her and pulled her out of the water—she had lashed herself by her belt to a pole that wasn’t that far from the island.



I feel so ashamed. I never told you that my daughter, Sophie is a Christian fundamentalist; the ‘only daughter of an astrologer’—ah... I feel Sophie must feel ashamed of me. Why do these beliefs come between us? Why did she go there? Was she hoping to become more…..faithful?



Will write more when I find out what’s happened….I’m off to England, to Lindisfarne, to the nearest little hospital in “Berwick-on-Tweed”. I wonder if they contacted her father, Alistair too—I can’t imagine seeing him again after five years….and meeting him this way.

!!!~ Isabelle

Dear Kendra, Sept 5th

Dear Kendra~

I just found this poem I wrote for Alistair and I, years before our separation, and it made me cry. I wrote it after we returned from a trip to France, and I believe there was a wonderful Neptune/Venus aspect happening at the time.



Neptune rules nostalgia, film and photographs, yearning, illusions, and combined with Venus it nurtures romantic idealism at its best. I remember thinking Alistair and I would be together always…such a sense of severance I feel now…



I called the Poem “Old Photographs” as I was imagining us looking together at photographs in years to come—and now it has been over two years that we’ve been apart. I don’t know how we will ever come around to finalizing the separation into a divorce; I certainly can’t do it. It all makes me sad. This must be part of Saturn conjuncting my Sun in the 7th house of marriage. Since Saturn takes over 2 years to travel through each section of the chart, each house, I wonder how it will play out for us? I suppose Saturn here is also capable of re-uniting us, but I haven’t seen signs of it…



Old Photographs

"I was in the café, sitting in front of the potted geraniums

wearing the straw hat I just bought.

I was writing a postcard to my mother

when I looked up to see the shadows

of the early autumn evening

dancing on the stucco walls.



Then you walked by—you were taking pictures of the light.

I watched you… trying to imagine what you were seeing there.

And then you turned your gaze on me

and shot this one here—

a little out of focus—but it was then that I saw them—

the tenderest eyes I’d ever seen.



Look. This is where we found ourselves standing later

by the edge of the river—the one Van Gogh painted.

We walked for hours feeling Van Gogh.

You talked apertures, lens and focus.



This was the hotel, Le D’Arlatan…

Do you remember wandering the back streets—

lost in the cobbled labyrinths—

till we found ourselves here?



The oversized antique bed held expectations. I felt shy.

You said—“Pull the curtains,” and I pulled the heavy curtains back.

I read you a poem by candlelight.

You smiled right into my soul—then served us farmer’s wine

in the opalescent glasses we’d bought that day.



I put the photographs down.

“It was so good,” you say.

“Like the wisp of a dream I can barely remember.”

I lean into your eyes; those milky apertures

transparent with the film of a lifetime.



Now, I offer you wine and pull the curtains open

catching the last dance of light on the peach colored walls.

You put on the old songs…

We sit in chairs by the window,

admiring the blue hydrangeas

our knees will touch, and we will speak about how

the quality of light makes everything different

and everything the same." ~



With love,

Isabelle

Private Journal, August 26

Private Journal, August 26, 2010


It was only in 1920, on this day, that women got the right to vote in the United States! Ah~ how those women struggled “to have a voice” and how we still struggle to find our true voice, our authentic Self and express it…every one of us.



This language of astrology has become a voice for me. But it’s strange how ambivalent I feel about it! I hate cocktail-talk astrology, and just don’t do it. And when I called Kendra after the last letter about her miscarriage, I certainly didn’t want to “talk astrology” but the language of the heart.



But there’s more to my reluctance. When I told her that I feel like a “reluctant astrologer” she asked me what I meant--and I couldn’t find the words! So now as I sit here writing in this journal I’m going to try to “think it out” and find my voice that is so often reluctant and ambivalent about astrology….

First there’s the good: this language has given me a voice so that I can speak and counsel others without pathologizing, blaming or shaming. It’s short term therapy—and all therapies—seem to me to me to be the same at the core. Different techniques, yes, and some better at different times, but doesn’t it all come down to: LOVE heals & INSIGHT heals. That’s the heart of it: understanding, catharsis/crying, and love. Love heals.



When astrology “normalizes” experience, as in “yes, that’s one of the ways that a Saturn Return will play out in your life” there’s comfort there, as one can feel connected to a larger sense of meaning and patterns—even a God—something that is not all about random chaos, and luck or the lack of it—or will power and the lack of it.



And when an astrologer listens well—there can be a sense of loving connection between them as well as this connection to a larger pattern of things—even if it’s only to sacred wounds we all carry.



There are times when astrology is “eerily” on target—when what I say and the details of the story of their life synchronize strangely. How could I know those things if astrology wasn’t at least partially true? How could I know that the key to a Pluto transit is about letting go and surrender, whereas the key to a Jupiter transit is “be careful what you wish for, as you may get it?” Hmm… Jupiter transits sound like a coaching session---“do you know what you really want?” whereas a Neptune focused session might be more like: “No, you’re not losing your mind or getting Alzheimer’s, but you just need to let it be OK to “not know” right now…and don’t sign on the dotted line either till this transit passes…!”



So….what’s the problem then….with astrology? With me? Bottom line: there is no way I or anyone else can say how a particular sign or aspect or transit will be played out. Too much variation; no tight foretelling or “signatures” for events. So when a planet, like Saturn, crosses the 4th house cusp, I can say to a person-- you’re going to start thinking about moving, or at the least, about radical re-modeling your home—because you’re wanting your inner sense of home and your outer physical home to be aligned, and there’s a change coming. But I have no idea if this will be played with joy or despair or just how the person will "rework" this foundation area of their chart...their home.



I wonder if it doesn’t all come down to the fact that we have free will and we’re separate Souls making choices? And so astrology is more like a weather forecast than a fortune teller’s prediction. I think if a fortune teller or psychic is right, it’s more likely that a person is in their default habitual pattern of doing things, and not aware of all their possibilities. I guess that’s what astrology should do….make us aware of these opportunities and challenges so that we make the best choices.



But still…I remain reluctant. What happens when we see multiple aspects that are challenging all at the same time? Like what I am facing in the next few years…I wonder if it plants a seed of anxiety? But maybe that’s not bad? I get to sense my mortality, so my decisions might be better. The Buddhists seem to think that meditating upon impermanence is a good idea. I’m not sure….think I'll go up to the art studio and get out of my head for awhile and into my paints....

Letter #9: Astro-Jargon and the Language of the Heart

Dear Kendra~


Last night I was sitting at dinner between two astrologers who were talking voraciously about their techniques--the rightness of the Placidus or Koch house systems, their views on declinations, mid-points, and orbs, and the disparity between Vedic and Western astrology. I found myself in a strangely quiet mood. They seemed like two jewelers exclaiming the beauty of their gems, the profundity of their skills—and their suspicious interplay left me hungry. I listened to their astro-jargon, thinking all the while that they were like bees gathering no nectar. By the time we got to the dessert, I finally found space in the conversation—and was aggravated enough to offer a different opinion.



"What about going deeper into the richness of this mythological language— what about the art of translating astro-jargon into soulful English--! What about bringing it into useful, practical insights drawn from simple techniques?" I challenged them--asking them what they would say to seeing Neptune squaring Mars in a chart and explaining that to a client. I wondered if they knew the simple “rule of three” where one looks to see if a psychological pattern is repeated three times in order to gage its importance. And finally I asked them if they knew that the Nodes have a way of pulling the whole chart together—they didn’t know that.



Perhaps I was not in a good mood for "parroting about" with the astro-jargon because I was thinking about your heartfelt letter. How could I reply to that? There wasn’t going to be any simple astrological insight that would make it better—only perhaps the knowing that I was hearing and feeling you..call it .love, friendship, caring...whatever.... and I was loving  the reflection you gave about the Moon and Pluto, and how the resonance between what happened and the astrological symbolism made you feel that you were part of a larger whole--you have been through a sacred wounding known to many women. It was a wise letter.



So now, instead of talking Saturn Returns and astrological aspects, I’d rather share with you these feelings that came up as I was having my morning coffee—this is what I wrote in my journal:



“When someone deeply listens to you, the fist-muscle of the heart relaxes and opens, in sweet surprise. When someone deeply listens to you, you begin to breathe. The heart extends itself like a child’s up-reaching hand and is held. It’s as if a cup that was half-empty now fills with waters of unexpected grace, and the touch of their eyes on your Soul opens the floodgates to healing tears. When someone holds you in their heart, listening deeply with words both said and unsaid, the heart rejoices… and you come to know yourself for the first time as worthy, whole and holy. In this sacred moment of time, there is love.”

I hope I have listened to you this way. I hold you in my heart….and this is what I send to you this morning, Kendra~

Isabelle

Private Papers of a Reluctant Astrologer: Fifth Letter

Dear Isabelle~


I was reading your book last night about the North and South Nodes, and when I read what you wrote in it about my Nodes, my boyfriend, Carl, said it was all “magical thinking.” Well, you know what? I don’t care, because what you wrote about the Nodes, destiny, fate, and especially my North Node in Leo really touched something deep inside me and it felt right…very right. I also haven’t told you something. Not just about the fortune-tellers prediction…


OK—this is what happened: I was re-reading about my Nodes—my life direction and soul purpose as you say—and it was so synchronistic that you used Joni Mitchell as an example of this North Node Leo pattern! You said it was “time to come in from the cold.” Did you know that’s a line from one of her songs? And—I was listening to that song at the exact moment of reading your words about North Node Leo to Carl --talk about synchronicity!


You said: “ The soul purpose here is to create loving connections with others in order to heal a sense of being the outsider or the persecuted one. By leaving behind harsh judgments of myself or others, the idea now in this life is to ‘come in from the cold’ and become one of us. Your need is to open your heart, and make your presence felt—dare to shine and step forward…be effective and compelling rather than being concerned about being right.”


Then you said that the “shadow with these Nodes is an entrenched fear that entices one to be controlling, inflexible or stubborn…but that having a sense of humor shows that one knows or can contain the pain of life, and can accept the drama of it all as well.”


OK, well here it is. I’m pregnant. And that astrologer was predicting that my relationship was going to break up when transiting Saturn reached my “Seventh House” next winter—and he was also saying that unless I change something in me, I’ll never have a relationship! And then he started saying Scorpio Sun and Leo North Node was too controlling, that we’re drama queens, and yet I feel like an exile, not a queen! I feel “out of the circle” as it is, different and alienated, and that’s my fear…that I don’t know how to love and be loved. That’s the South Node Aquarius that I coming from and can’t seem to leave behind.


Well, as I was reading this to Carl he just acted bored and like I was out of my mind, and I got really angry at him. I told him if he didn’t care for me and how I feel inside, then what were we about? I tried to point to his Nodes in your book, but he didn’t even want to look at his own patterns.


It got worse—I showed him the letter between us about my Moon in Cancer and we came to talking about children, and he said he didn’t want children. Period. And I said, guess what? I’m pregnant! Yes, it’s true. I cried, and apologized, and said it was all a big mistake, and he said—get an abortion. Nothing about how it was his “mistake” too. Nothing about feelings or possibilities. Then my rage turned black, and I said yes I would—I’d get an abortion right now! I’m aborting you right now! I screamed. And I threw him out the door.


OK, some drama, I know. But with my back against the door, I started crying and then the tears stopped, and I felt and a certain coolness came over me. I’m angry at my own stupidity for choosing such a cold man, and that it had to come to this. Maybe I do need to dare (with my Aries rising) and to be open-hearted (Leo) and to stop holding it all inside and being secretive (my planets in Scorpio.) You once told me that “the exiled heretic must take a stand and make a Presence in the world”—do something big—well I made a big mistake with him. And now I have to decide what I really will do.


So this is the Saturn Return. So tell me what you think, and send me a copy of your chart too, if you don’t mind. Somehow studying astrology and spirituality while I’m dealing with all this feels like the only good thing happening right now.
Sadly,
Kendra

The Private Papers of a Reluctant Astrologer: Fourth Letter (not sent)/ Private Journal

The Private Papers of a Reluctant Astrologer: Fourth Letter (not sent)/ Private Journal: "Dear Kendra~ I'm writing this in my journal first because I'm trying to think how to talk to you about your chart before I write yo..."

The Private Papers of A Reluctant Astrologer

To Readers of North Node Astrology~
I've started a new astrological "book in a blog" set up as letters between an older astrologer, Isabelle, who is mentoring a younger women, Kendra. Isabelle has taken on Kendra as a student and she will be privately teaching her through these letters. We'll also see Isabelle's private journal and personal struggles around her own issues of fate and destiny. Both women are experiencing their Saturn Returns, one at 29 years old, and one at 59 years old.


Their email/letter correspondence has deep meaning and synchronicity for both of them--and what is the prediction that seems to be coming true? Why does Isabelle call herself a "reluctant astrologer"? Oscar Wilde said: "The final mystery is oneself" but these women want to delve deeper into understanding their unconscious motivations and karma through astrology--as well as deciphering what is really happening in these years of
"2012" which have already begun.


If you sign in/subscribe as a reader you will be sent an automatic email as each new chapter is written. Hope to see some of you there! Leave your comments and questions as well.....the direct link is on the sidebar here, or you can cut and paste this: http://PrivatePapersof-a-ReluctantAstrologer.blogspot.com

Mark Twain's Astrological Chart: Haley's Comet

Haley's comet passed across the November skies in 1835, the same month Mark Twain was born--and it was his greatest wish--and proclaimed vow--that he would "go out" with the passing of that comet some 75 years later. And he did. Twain died on April 21, 1910 as Haley passed across the heavens once again. Twain had another wish too--that his autobiography would come out exactly 100 years after his death--as per his instructions--on this November 2010. And so Twain, like Carl Jung and the publication of Jung's Red Book, will be in the news again and we'll be able to read the inner thoughts of another man of integrity.

After watching Ken Burn's poignant documentary on the life of Mark Twain, I was astounded at the depth of Twain's character. Here was an author, satirist, humorist, and great humanitarian who suffered such tragedy in his life--a massive bankruptcy, public shame, and the early death of his daughter--and yet who vowed not only to pay back every penny of his his debt in bankruptcy by doing ten years of grueling hard work, but who also had the audacity to tell "the gods" that his greatest wish was to die with the passing of Haley's comet, and "the gods" obliged.

I don't intend to tell his story here, but just to point out some points of astrologiucal significance. Born with his Sun in Sagittarius, he had the natural story telling ability, ego strength and optimism that is characteristic of that sign. His Moon, in Aries, reflects his emotional courage, passionate and entrepenurial character. Yet that Moon was conjunct Pluto, God of the Underworld, and Twain suffered not only personal deaths and rebirths, but the early deaths of those closest to him. He expressed the suffering of slavery, of humanity's cruelty to each other, and he dared to rage against "God himself." And yet he did it as one of us--not with a finger of blame, but instead by "smiling through the sorrow" with his characteristic good will towards all.

How did he do it? With grit and force of character--astrologers see this in his chart with Scorpio rising as well as his South Node in Scorpio in the first house--and his great summons to his live into his North Node in Taurus in the Seventh house of marriage, and intimate one on one relationships---all of which grounded him in a reality that allowed him to endure and be creative. In the polarity between these Nodes we see the balance and challenge of the Scorpio and Taurus Nodes--the tension between the Scorpionic drama of life with its capacity to overwhelm and the Taurus rootedness in loyalty, steadfastness, and the good things of this earth.

Of course, he overdid it all--as a a Sag with an Aries Moon might do, but he lived to tell about it, and now with Ken Burn's documentary and his upcoming autobiography, we get to see the story of death and rebirth profoundly expressed in the life of a man with so much integrity that even "God himself" honored him with his last wish. (c) Elizabeth Spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/

"Purpose is the Place Where Your Deep Gladness Meets the World's Needs"

“Purpose is the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s needs.”
Frederick Buechner

Writing “North Node Astrology”, a book about how to find one’s life direction and soul purpose, sounds a little arrogant or naïve depending on whether or not you believe astrology has anything truly worthwhile to say at all. One’s life direction seems to evolve through some mysterious equation of fate, character and destiny. How far does our free will take us? How random is fate? Metaphysical questions abound, yet it is in the making of character through the depth of our insight that intrigues me. My hope is that this book gives you, dear reader, a rather “special and curious tool” to dig deeper into the whys and wherefores of character and destiny. And as for soul purpose, I share a common yet sacred bias here, in saying that it is ultimately bound up with our growing ability to love and be loved.

Similarly, as a counselor I’m inclined to say that one’s life direction and soul purpose is about the movement towards healing and wholeness—for who among us is not wounded and less than whole? Our life direction sometimes seems to evolve as much by default as it does by purpose, and yet we sense that it’s more than the “visible hat” we wear in the world. It is about our healing, wholeness and deep happiness, and this is different for each of us.

Can you remember when you first heard the words of the poet, William Wordsworth, when he said “our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, the Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar: not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory…”? Maybe it’s true that life existed before this birth, perhaps not. However, embracing the theory of reincarnation is not necessary to get something out of this book—what I might see as the reincarnational story, you the reader, might understand as the effect of early childhood experiences and parental DNA. Either theory works.

As you might rightly assume, my point of view is that I like the theory of reincarnation, because although not provable, it’s a way to look at the world that holds the promise of fairness and justice. It’s a hopeful bias—because we all know that life is often not “fair” to a person in one life, but it may prove to be somehow mysteriously “fair” over many lifetimes. The law of cause and effect, of karma, operates silently with its twin sisters, fate and destiny, in ways we don’t fully understand from our perspective. Yet we may be able to discern an order and an invisible pattern when you look closely—such as when you look at the backside of a tapestry or when you see the “lay of the land” from the top of the mountain. The closer I look and the farther I look, the more interesting the patterns become.

What are these invisible patterns we might not see? A friend once said, “Be kinder than necessary because everyone we meet is fighting some kind of battle.” What is that invisible battle we don’t see in our friend? What are the invisible patterns in our life? What happens when we detect patterns using theories such as astrology and reincarnation? Perhaps they must simply be felt and experienced rather than proven, and then decided whether they are useful or not. It is in these realms I seek to probe.

So I accept reincarnation and astrology as a “kind theory” that challenges chaos and randomness. It gives me faith that there is “meaningfulness” to existence even if it can’t be proven or discerned in one life. Looking at things this way, life feels too cruel—yet we all go to the movies to watch a good story. We accept the drama and tragedy in a story.

In the Eastern tradition of Vedantic Hinduism we were once all part of the One story that created this great pattern. Their theory of reincarnation postulates that we live through lifetime after lifetime of lila and maya, of play and illusion, till we arrive back at the place where we started at the beginning. According to this philosophy there is an evolutionary story evolving—that there are synchronistic correlations and resonances between things, and that an evolutionary drama is being enacted. Like the legendary “magus” Hermes Trigmegestus once said: “As it is above, so it is below, as it is in the inner, so it is in the outer.” Man is the microcosm, the universe the macrocosm, and in some metaphysical sense they are One. I like to entertain these possibilities as being true.

So if you can suspend your skepticism about reincarnation and entertain the idea that astrological symbolism is a language best used to explore psychological and spiritual terrains—well then, I invite you to consider that there may be something in your birth chart that speaks of your specific life direction and soul purpose.

If you approach this book with an open and curious mind, you come to the question—why do I have this particular astrological chart? Why was I born at this particular time and place? Did I come here to learn or experience something unique to me? This kind of thinking challenges you to question everything you think you know about yourself and to look beneath the obvious.

And for those of you who have already seen the value of astrology in describing who you are and what you’re experiencing, then you’re ready to begin excavating the “soul’s code” embedded in the ancient astrological points of the North and South Node—known in India as Rahu and Ketu. These nodes aren’t planets, but astronomical points that have been overlooked in the recent past by astrologers preoccupied with prediction, rather than purpose. I believe they are true astrological gold. Astrological gold? Yes, like the alchemist’s philosopher’s stone, these esoteric points in the birth chart give us a base to turn the Saturnian “lead” of mundane reality into philosophic gold. An astrologer might say they offer a mercurial secret knowledge.

This process of looking to an oracle—or more accurately, looking for an oracular sign for direction, is like asking to make what is unconscious, conscious. It’s like unraveling a good mystery novel, and lends us a small but useful measure of control over our life. As Carl Jung once said, “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.” How exciting it is to ponder the idea that we might have some say in our fate! Is it an interesting theory, or a gift of grace from the gods? You decide.
© Elizabeth Spring

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