Astrology: Myth, Magic and Mystery~Excerpted from book: North Node Astro...

Pema Chodron: Path of the Warrior~ Artwork: "Learning Not to Panic" Elizabeth Spring

"To stay with the shakiness - to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge - that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with the uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic - this is the spiritual path. Getting the knack of catching ourselves, of gently and compassionately catching ourselves, is the path of the warrior." Pema Chodron   Artwork: Elizabeth Spring

 Three Things You Need to Ask for in an Astrological Reading

Who are you apart from your family, roles, and relationships? Is your history and the way you frame your life story—your “personal mythology”—dictating your life? If this self is not an expression of your Soul, you may find you are in the midst of a Soul Revolution—and the Soul revolts through physical symptoms, fear, and a general feeling of “stuckness.” None of it is pleasant.

 So how do you dialogue with your Soul to find out what it wants? Are you willing to take on the project of finding out what your heart really needs? Your head says: there are things I must do, there are issues around time, money, my family, and—on top of that, I just don’t feel so good! Maybe I’m sick or depressed. Maybe. Maybe you need a soul dialogue.

And so you try. You pray, meditate, try new things and approaches…you gain new insights, summon your courage, and plan to endure the process of finding your life direction and soul purpose. Brilliant. A great start. Maybe you change your diet and de-clutter your bedroom or office, or you join a 12 step program and talk to others about that initial insight or abyss or stuckness that you’re getting over. So far, so good!

  But some morning something happens. The fabric doesn’t hold, and you need something else—now you don’t need astrology to change your life, but it sure can help—not only with a fresh insight, but with sensing how things change, and how you can learn to trust the process of change and growth.

So here are three things you need to know to understand your astrology chart and what you need to ask for in an astrology reading:

1—Look to see if there is a “resonance and compatibility” between your Sun sign and the way you live your life. This should be obvious, because the Sun represents your life force energy, and holds the key to your identity. Ideally, something about who you are and your way of doing things should have a resonance with the nature of your Sun sign. Learn what your sign really means, what it likes and how to work with it!—i.e. if you know you’re a Sagittarian in your early twenties, will you want to take the office job for the corporation? Will you want to marry early? Ever hear the refrain “don’t fence me in”? A Sagittarian screamed it from the top of a mountain. But if that job proposal allows you long week-ends and time away to travel with your friends, hike the mountains, or to dig into your favorite books and take night classes, then why not? Don’t settle for simple answers or clichés. Find the deeper meanings in that Sun sign.

2—Consider the gifts and challenges of your North and South Nodes. There’s a strong message there—a long term Soul warning of what may be a “Soul Cage” for you in your South Node default patterns, and what may be “good medicine” for you in your North Node. This is about your life direction and soul purpose. It’s what you need to know to stay in alignment with your original soul contract. But why does the sign of your North Node often feel “not you”? Because it’s the compensatory medicine that helps you to align and dialogue from a place of safety within your Soul. It may feel more of what you need than what you have.

3—Consider your transits. What’s happening for you now? What’s the best place to focus now? The day to day transits you read on the internet, like the morning weather forecast, are fleeting moments—it’s the outer planet transits that matter—as they conjunct, oppose or square your natal planets….look closely at how that “committee of inner selves” that we call planetary archetypes, is being “besieged” by the current transits. When, where and why is this happening to me? When will this be over? Where should I focus now? Why is it happening? Remember that no transit happens before its time. You’re ready; that’s why. You can handle it, and it’s time to make a move….but if it’s a Pluto transit you may have to practice surrender, and if it’s a Uranus transit, you can’t wait any longer to begin a real change. Find out your astrological weather forecast.

This is what I help you do in a “reading.” And so, this is why I ask you to tell me in an email letter before our time together: What brought you to this moment in your life now? What’s your story? And what might you need to know? Of course, you can do this yourself, or you can do it with an astrologer…but you’ll do the most important talk with your Self when the “reading” is over, and the insights sink in. That’s when the true dialogue with your Soul begins.

 elizabethspring@aol.com  

 

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud--Similarities in their Astrological Charts

       Psychological ground-breakers Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung both had similarities in their astrological charts--they each had an Aries North Node, and a South Node in Libra. Each of these men embodied the Aries pioneering spirit that broke new ground in the world of psychology. With South Nodes in Libra, they were called to break away from the limitations of partnerships and relationships—even with each other—and to reach for the self-directed, independent qualities of Aries.

 Jung’s North Node was in the 2^nd house of self-worth, suggesting how important it was for him to produce a body of work that would prove himself to himself. With his South Node in the 8^th house of other people’s values, he needed to let go of the approval of others, and acquire the self-confidence one gets by defining oneself in one’s own terms. Jung’s break with Freud at his Uranus Opposition (around age forty) was extremely traumatic for Jung and precipitated his short but intense psychological breakdown. In later years, Jung’s independence and disregard for other’s opinions, allowed him to have intimate relationships with many people, and to explore the taboo subjects of alchemy and astrology.

Freud’s North Node Aries was in the 6^th house, suggesting that he was called to be both devoted to his work and to the needs of his physical body. Whether he was a hypochondriac or in as much physical pain as he said he was, was not as important as the need he had to attend to his body as well as his Work. Many people would say Freud had psychosomatic illnesses and a cocaine addiction, yet despite this, few people would discount the great work that he pioneered in his life. It’s worthwhile to remember that we should never be too judgmental about another person’s success or lack of success in reaching their North Node aspirations. We all fail and succeed in varying degrees.

   Excerpted from book: North Node Astrology; Rediscovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose

North Node Chart: How to find your North Node Sign

Find your North Node Sign by using your birthday and year~then scroll down on right side of blog till you see the description/blog post on your North Node sign. 

·               Apr. 24, 1924 - Oct. 26, 1925: Leo

·               Oct. 27, 1925 - Apr.16, 1927: Cancer

·               Apr.17, 1927 - Dec. 28, 1928: Gemini

·               Dec. 29, 1928 - July 7, 1930: Taurus

·               July 8, 1930 - Dec. 28, 1931: Aries

·               Dec .29, 1931 - June 24, 1933: Pisces

·               June 25, 1933 - Mar. 8, 1935: Aquarius

·               Mar. 9, 1935 - Sept. 14, 1936: Capricorn

·               Sept.15, 1936 - Mar. 3, 1938: Sagittarius

·               Mar. 4, 1938 - Sept. 12, 1939: Scorpio

·               Sept.13, 1939 - May 24, 1941: Libra

·               May 25, 1941 - Nov. 21, 1942: Virgo

·               Nov. 22, 1942 - May 11, 1944: Leo

·               May 12, 1944 - Dec. 13, 1945: Cancer

·               Dec. 14, 1945 - Aug. 2, 1947: Gemini

·               Aug. 3, 1947 - Jan. 26, 1949: Taurus

·               Jan. 27, 1949 - July 26, 1950: Aries

·               July 27, 1950 - Mar. 28, 1952: Pisces

·               Mar. 29, 1952 - Oct. 9, 1953: Aquarius

·               Oct. 10, 1953 - Apr. 2, 1955: Capricorn

·               Apr. 3, 1955 - Oct. 4, 1956: Sagittarius

·             Oct. 5, 1956 - June 16, 1958: Scorpio

·             June 17, 1958 - Dec.15, 1959: Libra

•        Dec. 16, 1959 - June 10, 1961: Virgo

·               June 11, 1961 - Dec. 23, 1962: Leo

·               Dec. 24, 1962 - Aug. 25, 1964: Cancer

·               Aug. 26, 1964 - Feb. 19, 1966: Gemini

·               Feb. 20, 1966 - Aug. 19, 1967: Taurus

·               Aug. 20, 1967 - Apr.19, 1969: Aries

·               Apr. 20, 1969 - Nov. 2, 1970: Pisces

·               Nov. 3, 1970 - Apr. 27, 1972: Aquarius

·               Apr. 28, 1972 - Oct. 27, 1973: Capricorn

·               Oct. 28, 1973 - July 10, 1975: Sagittarius

·               July 11, 1975 - Jan. 7, 1977: Scorpio

·               Jan. 8, 1977 – July 5, 1978: Libra

·               July 6, 1978 - Jan. 12, 1980: Virgo

·               Jan.13, 1980 - Sept. 24, 1981: Leo

·               Sept. 25, 1981 - Mar.16, 1983: Cancer

·               Mar.17.1983 - Sept.11, 1984: Gemini

·               Sept.12, 1984 - Apr. 6, 1986: Taurus

·               Apr. 7, 1986 – Dec. 2, 1987: Aries

·               Dec. 3, 1987 - May 22, 1989: Pisces

·               May 23, 1989 - Nov. 8, 1990: Aquarius

·               Nov.19, 1990 - Aug. 1, 1992: Capricorn

·               Aug. 2, 1992 - Feb. 1, 1994: Sagittarius

·               Feb .2, 1994 – Jul. 31, 1995: Scorpio

·               Aug.1, 1995 - Jan. 25, 1997: Libra

·               Jan. 26, 1997 - Oct. 20, 1998: Virgo

·               Oct. 21, 1998 - Apr. 9, 2000: Leo

·               Apr.10, 2000 - Oct. 12, 2001: Cancer

·               Oct. 13, 2001 - Apr. 13, 2003: Gemini

·               Apr. 14, 2003 - Dec. 25, 2004: Taurus

·       Dec. 26, 2004 - June 21, 2006: Aries

• June 22, 2006 - Dec.18, 2007: Pisces
• Dec. 19, 2007 - Aug. 22, 2009: Aquarius

I think readers of this blog might be interested in my new blog which is going to move into becoming a book. It's called "Mystics, Madmen and Messiahs~The Unchosen Lives of Carl Jung and J. Krishnamurti."  Check out the link: http://CarlJungandJKrishnamurti.blogspot.com  These two wise sages have been spiritual mentors for me, and there's a lot about the stories of their lives that people don't know and I am excited to share. My passion for them is how their lives and teachings related: sometimes paradoxically sometimes beautifully. Hope to see you there! ~elizabeth spring~

Bitterness: The Silent Disease

   "Anger is a short madness." Horace 65 BC

 

Anger is a short madness, but bitterness is anger that has been boiled, simmered, and then found so unpalatable that it has been thrown into the deep freeze of our unconscious psyches. Recently the “Los Angeles Times” printed an article called: “Bitterness as mental illness?” It stated that:
“Bitter behavior is so common and deeply destructive that some psychiatrists are urging it be identified as a mental illness under the name post-traumatic embitterment disorder.”

How many of us have a touch of this disease? How many people do we know that have it? And towhat degree? Anger is what we feel first in the face of injustice, and repeated anger becomes deep-seated resentment at whoever and whatever is upsetting us. It turns cold and bitter. And the worse part is that it can turn us bitter even when we think we’ve hidden it so well! It can show on our faces, in our expressions, in our tone of voice. It gives us indigestion, insomnia, back pain, and unexplained headaches. We want so much for it not to de-freeze-- we want so much to forgive and forget, but proper disposal of toxic pain isn’t easy. Most of us need help with it.

Bitterness is a crusty disease that grows on unprocessed anger. It is particularly dangerous for us as we age, because many therapists, including myself, believe that it plays a part in heart disease as well. The heart is both a physical and emotional organ that reflects how we treat it. Most of us are trying to exercise away the excesses that have deposited themselves as fat—but what are we doing with all that un-dealt with pain in our hearts? With the years of frozen anger?

First of all, it needs to be acknowledged. Yes, it’s there. Maybe you call it disillusionment with your career, or maybe you say it’s how your sister cheated you out of part of your inheritance, or maybe it’s that romantic love never quite came through for you. You may have the regret of the ‘enabler’ or the one who had to sacrifice a large part of her life for another. Maybe you blame someone or blame yourself. What matters most though, is the story we tell ourselves about it.

We may think that we have done our ‘anger management’ by cooling and repressing our anger, but in most cases, it’s still alive and not well. It needs to be thawed, re-heated, and disposed of properly. Refrigeration doesn’t work well, as cooled anger turns to resentment and bitterness. It has an annoying tendency to leak out at inappropriate times-- upsetting good relationships, disturbing our dreams, and filling us with a vague discontent.


This story needs to be re-told and re-framed. If you will investigate, research, and delve deeper into the place where you hold this bitterness and pain, you can gain a wider perspective and a deeper understanding of the whole picture. You need to have someone who can deeply listen to your story, and whose opinions you trust. Allow them to help you understand it from a variety of different perspectives. Allow them to help you put it into a story that makes some sense (not easy!)

The psychologist, Carl Jung, once wrote that all adult neuroses could only be healed by a spiritual perspective. Perhaps you can find a way to infuse the story with love towards yourself and others. The last step will be to tell the ‘deep freezer of your subconscious’ the new story of how and why it all happened, and how you see it now.

As a psychotherapist and astrological counselor, I often look at what I call the family karmic inheritance. This is the legacy of inherited sins and blessings that get handed down the generations, and I believe it’s responsible for more psychic distress than we realize.

You may notice that you have our mother’s eyes, but have you noticed that you have some of her passive aggressive traits as well? Do you know what she was holding her anger about? Can you discover how far back it goes? Could you be overly sensitive to authoritarian figures like your grandfather, or experiencing a similar conflict between the demands of creativity and family that he once did? How bad did it get? Once you know the nature of the inheritance you can look at it how it’s showing up in your life. Old, long, and difficult inheritances can be particularly insidious. When you become conscious of the “sins of the father’s” you not only begin a healing process for yourself, but you stop the inheritance from infecting your children.

Generations of maternal and paternal legacies influence us in subtle and not so subtle ways. In some families (such as the presidential Kennedy’s) there has been mention of a family ‘curse’. Although that is an exaggeration for most of us, almost everyone inherits a mixture of psycho-spiritual legacies that need to be sorted through. We need to pull out all the stories we can from the family deep freezer.

You can’t be fueled by bitterness, but you can be fueled by anger. Bitterness eats you up, whereas anger can fuel you to do the emotional detective work that heals. It can help you find your voice and your courage. If you are feeling depressed, stuck, or cynical its time to do the psychic de-freezing. This is the time to act, not to “depress.” You may have to admit that your attempts to sublimate and distract yourself from your difficult moods aren’t working any more. This is a good thing, because it means the time is right for you to make a positive and perhaps radical change.

As an astrologer and counselor, I find that there is a grace and energy that shows up when we do things at the right time. If you have no family members who are alive, or who won’t tell you true stories; you can find powerful hints as to this inheritance on your astrological chart. And when you allow yourself to feel strongly about your feelings, rather than freezing them, you allow an opening for grace and serendipity. Call it what you will: God or chance or synchronicity, but whenever you decide to melt the frozen chunks of bitter memories with the healing warmth of tears and heartfelt stories, you invite in powers and graces beyond your rational mind. I believe we ‘summon the Gods’ with our open hearts, and that the Soul is ruthless in finding its way home.

Elizabeth Spring, MA, has two books out on www.amazon.com , the first called: “North Node Astrology; Rediscovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose” and "Saturn Returns; The Private Papers of A Reluctant Astrologer"  She can be contacted through her website: www.elizabethspring.com

Excerpt from blog: 'South Node Astrology': How Love Sabotages and Saves our Lives

Sabotage? My hope is that the word “sabotage” in the title gave you a little jolt! Yes, “love” itself doesn’t sabotage, but the distortions and poverty of love (such as when we didn’t get “good enough parenting”) and our interpretation of what love is and isn’t— are the areas where “love” sabotages us. Every romantic movie and love song reminds us of how love “saves” us, but it’s in the therapist’s office that one hears the story of how love sabotages us. So the focus here will be in looking at our unique styles of loving—loving both ourselves, others and God. These were the first commandments we were given, and they certainly seem worth considering.

 One of my hopes for this blog and new book is to explore how reframing our understanding of love and relationship can help us bring in more of its saving quality and less of its sabotaging—and ultimately to explore how it’s truly an “inside job” which is much less dependent on others than we may realize. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and certainly don’t have perfect relationships, but I’m moved to delve into this territory. Want to come along? I welcome your thoughts on this….


So how does this fit with astrology? In exploring relationship patterns in astrology we look at the South Node, the Moon and to the planets Venus and Neptune. What happens when we have Venus and Pluto (God of the Underworld) in aspect in our charts? What happens when the Moon or Venus is squared by Mars? What happens when we keep repeating the mistakes of our South Node patterns, and keep coming up with the same unfulfilling patterns of “unlove” and bad relationships?


Love itself may be perfect—as the high expression of Neptune itself is perfect mystical love. But humans live primarily “Venus” love or “Moon” love—and it’s messy, confusing and imperfect. I believe it’s imprinted with the past life patterns of the South Node, in a similar way to how DNA is imprinted.


The strongest pattern to understand then may be the South Node in your birth chart. In Evolutionary Astrology, one is advised to “read” the South Node negatively; that is to understand it primarily as what we didn’t get right in the past. This past could be earlier in this life, or in former lives, or even what we didn’t get right yesterday.


It is the “Moon’s memory” not the Mercurial/linear memory, that is carried over from life to life. It is this memory that does not concern itself with facts, or details or stories, but holds simply the emotional impact—the drama and trauma of the Soul. We forget the stories of past lives, but something remains like a forgotten dream—and this “emotional hangover” is called the South Node of the Moon.


As you may know, the Nodes are mathematical points rather than planets, and are calculated by the intersecting orbits between the Earth, Sun, and Moon. Throughout the history of astrology these points have pointed to our re-incarnational history, for they describe where we’ve been (South Node) and where we’re going (North Node.) Like the compass that points North, or the astrolabe with the arrow shooting through the globe, these Nodes hold the “emotional memory” and trajectory of our lives.


As in dreams, and in all unconscious content, there is “gold” in these South Node patterns as well, and we carry over positive attributes, talents and inclinations as well as our default reactive patterns. It’s also been said in Vedic astrology that we give to others from the South Node what we know innately in our bones and psyche, and yet we feed and nurture ourselves from the soul wisdom of the North Node. This was the content of my first book, “North Node Astrology; Rediscovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose.”


A new book, of which this blog is the raw material of—concerns the nature of the emotional memory of the South Node. What do we remember emotionally? I believe it’s mostly about love and the presence or absence of Love. Relationships—and the burden we put on our relationships through our expectations and “styles of loving”.


 In this blog, I’ll be delving into the changing nature of relationships (with a little more focus on what love is after the hormones/honeymoon/anima projections have worn a little thinner) and to ponder “styles of loving” with a minimum of astrological jargon. I’d like it to contain enough astrology so that you can look at your chart, and say “Ah-hah!” but not so much astrology that you get lost in technicalities. I’ll attempt to interweave the psychological and the astrological, the personal and the interpersonal, the theories with the messy “particulars” of our lives.


It’s a big subject. We live and love among many “layers of feelings”—why do we dislike someone’s style or persona and yet “love” the person they truly are underneath all that? We divorce, dismiss, and lose people in our lives, sometimes like so many scraps of paper thrown away, yet these people continue to remain in our psyche nevertheless.

But….we can choose to live between the layers of feeling, not discarding or despairing or thinking in black/white polarities, and still honoring all the layers of loving, liking, disliking, and the mystery of love which sits in our hearts.


Here’s what the poet, Stanley Kunitz, had to say about this in his poem, “The Layers.” He wrote this in reflection, towards the end of his life. (This blogging program is printing it as prose--how interesting!--so I will leave it that way in a stream of consciousness style. Forgive me, you readers who are poets!)

"I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, and every stone on the road precious to me.

In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes."

                                                    “Alchemical Astrology”

Workshop at the Boston Jung Institute, Saturday October 20, 2012. For more info, questions, and registration call: 617-796-0108 or email: cgjungbos1@aol.com  10:00 am-4:00 pm  $60~5 CEUs

The archetypal planetary energies of Uranus and Pluto are squaring off to each other seven times between 2012 and 2018. What do these mythical energies represent? This planetary square is both generationally and personally impactful. In this workshop we’ll look at the higher and lower ‘octaves’ or expressions of each of these archetypes as they conjoined in the 1960’s and squared off in the 1930’s, as well as how they might be most skillfully played out in your astrological chart. We’ll look at how Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, and Uranus, harbinger of change, is placed in your birth chart and where it is now by transit. Registration must include birth date, time, and place. All registrants will receive their charts, and basic knowledge of astrology will be helpful.  Limited class size.

 From Rick Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche: "The Uranus-Pluto square could well represent something like a combination of the 1930s and the 1960s in a twenty-first-century context: a sustained period of enormous historical change requiring humanity to radically expand the scope of its vision and draw upon new resources and capacities in ways that could ultimately be deeply liberating."

Excerpt from book: 'North "Node Astrology; Rediscovering Your Life Direction and Soul Purpose"

“One’s life direction seems to evolve through the mysterious equation of “fate plus character equals destiny.” I’m intrigued by how that middle factor of character grows and is changed through our choices. How much free will do we really have? How random is fate? Metaphysical questions abound, yet I believe that it is in the making of character through our choices that makes all the difference, and the depth of the insight that accompanies it.

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. Our life direction is like the arrow which we shoot through the skies, and aimed or not aimed it lands somewhere. We choose our target based on what we know. 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.”

Pastel: Elizabeth Spring

MagicSecret

MagicSecret  (safe link for wise words....) 

     We live the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how it all is....so choose both your words and your stories carefully! Yes, that is part of the 'Magic Secret'....that is using the North Node skillfully.

Transiting Venus In Gemini: The Challenge: to create a new mind, based in the Heart.