The Saturn Return, Part Two

     How do we survive, thrive, and reinvent ourself during the Saturn Return? Saturn is the instinct to commit. Ask yourself this: “If I do nothing else in my entire life, what would be most important for me to make an effort at doing or being?” What would that look like? Would it be creating a better family than the one you were raised in? Inspiring others in a way you wish you had been inspired? Financially, emotionally, or spiritually finding peace or success?



Imagine that you could make a phone call to the “oldest wisest part of yourself” and ask this question. What would you want to build? What do you need to do to get there? Are you doing it yet? The good news is that despite Saturn’s connection with plain hard work and self-questioning, it’s also a time when opportunities present themselves to be thoughtfully examined Procrastination now seems like a bad idea, but quick change isn’t in the air either. Things must be taken slowly and old ways and habits may be having their “death and rebirth” and we need to be patient with ourselves as we move through the process of rebirthing and reinventing ourselves.


Maybe the old lover has finally committed “the last straw” and you know you must end the relationship. You make the difficult break, and then accept an invitation to go out on a date. New possibilities are in the making but the grieving process may take longer than you wish, and your heart slows you down. Or you’ve landed the new job, but the learning curve on it sends you home in tears for the first two weeks. But you hang in there. Or you’re finally pregnant, but you’re so sick you can’t enjoy it. Patience and endurance…hallmarks of Saturn.

 That’s the feeling of the Saturn Returns, but look what’s coming! If you follow through with your new vision, you’ve taken the first steps towards a true new beginning. Saturn likes to create forms and structures and new beginnings, but not without strong foundations. Old unfinished business—your psychological baggage--will stand in the way before your new birth takes place. Real change and self-reinvention calls for you to trust the process as it unfolds.


The Saturn Returns are marked by these kinds of personal milestones. We move, marry, divorce, go back to school, have a baby, leave a job or pick up on an old dream we’ve forgotten about. We do something different. The navigational tools are twofold: we must take a chance now, and we must give it all we can. When we are willing to do that, we are be rewarded.


Saturn asks us “Whose movie am I in?”” and then challenges us to be the director and author. Wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could just read some “manual to life” and have the ghost of “Christmas Future” come to us to show the way? Instead, we are called to become our own best “author-ity,” to truly become the author of our life.


We’re being asked now to re-write our personal life script with our own spiritual muscle. Not always so easy, especially when our life drama is full of people who no longer reflect who we really are and what we are becoming. “Letting go” is another key concept for this time


The human unconscious has ways of conjuring up people, events, and situations that challenge us to the bone. Psychologists sometimes call it projection, and we feel it as the remarkable synchronicity between what’s happening in our inner lives with what’s happening to us in the outer landscape—I don’t think it’s just an uncanny coincidence. At times it’s as if we’ve conjured up whoever or whatever we most wanted to avoid—or attract—in our lives. It’s as if the unconscious “hires” other people to play out parts of our life stories—this one is the boss, this one the victim, this one the unfaithful lover.


At the Saturn Returns you’ve probably “had it” with some of these people and situations and it’s time to write them out of the script of your life drama. At each Saturn Return we are challenged to take back our projections and to look at the drama of our life as our responsibility. It’s too late to blame anyone anymore.


The Second Saturn Return, in the late fifties, is also a time that calls for concrete actions in the real world, but it can be more subtle and occasionally more insidious. If we don’t do what needs to be done now, we might not be given a second chance. If we put off our yearly physical exam or don’t stop the spread of some nasty growth, it may be too late later. If we take a stiff upper lip attitude and deny the fact that “the job is killing me” it may indeed kill you. We need to find ways to “fall upwards” rather than “falling downwards.” We don’t measure our life by the same standards as we did the first half of life: Carl Jung said that when he warned us not to measure the afternoon of our life by the same expectations and attitudes as we did in the “morning of our life.”



As the body ages, depression and physical difficulties inevitably arise, yet as the body becomes less an object of vanity it’s a chance for the Spirit to rise. This is also the time when we may feel an uprising of irritability as a few old habits or attitudes have the chance to rear their nasty heads again. This is because now is the time to cut them off—to be done once and for all with them. You may ask yourself: why am I dealing with these same issues again? The answer is: because you’ve almost resolved them. And the last straw can be the hardest. The hallmark of the second Saturn Return is that as you deal with the old pockets of unfinished business, you gain a new life as well as the sense that you are truly coming into yourself with more integrity than ever before. But it’s a process that involves choices—and when you make good choices, you can be “born again” spiritually—not necessarily in religious sense—but in the wider meaning of that metaphor.


And how do you do that? Priorities need to be clearer, and metaphorical closets and basements cleaned. There is a need to look at what we feel disillusioned about and let the illusions go, lest these old ghosts feed on us and make us bitter. It’s time to slow down and allow more sweetness and companionship into our lives, and to let the wild dogs of ambitious willfulness fight elsewhere. © Elizabeth Spring  Please ask permission before reprinting to: elizabethspring@aol.com  Homepage: www.elizabethspring.com For more information about Saturn Returns: http://thesaturnreturns.blogspot.com/  



 

The Saturn Returns, Part One

“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.” C.G. Jung


The Saturn Returns at ages twenty-nine and fifty-nine are times of great change and opportunity. And so, they can also be times of crisis. What do you think of when you hear the words: “Know Thyself” and “Nothing in Excess”? These were the words inscribed above the sacred oracular temple at Delphi, Greece. One might think that by understanding and trying to live by those wise words one might avoid the great troubles in life. Perhaps they help. Our understanding of these words changes as we age, but life often plays some nasty tricks on us in the meantime. Perhaps this is why folks who understand “just a little” astrology view the coming of the Saturn Returns, at 29 years old and 59 years old with deep sighs. But then, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.



Saturn is a “symbolic planet” that asks us to reinvent ourselves and our ways of living. Not so bad! However in ancient times, when people have fewer choices, Saturn was seen as the “old malefic” and its passage was viewed with some suspicion. “Saturnian” times can feel serious, with occasional bouts of melancholy or delay, but Saturn’s purpose is to re-structure our lives—not to make us miserable. If we don’t resist its call to change, restructure and reinvent ourselves, we will reap its rewards. Saturn transits have a way of slowing us down long enough so that we take a cold hard look at the realities we’ve built up in our lives and find new ways to become the true author—the authority—in our life. We are finally having another chance to become who we really are.


Saturn, in mythology, relates to the harvest, rewarding those who have “worked” for the effort it takes. It brings a good harvest if we’re willing to wait, work and endure. Saturn, acting as the “stern taskmaster” likes nothing better than asking us to take out the garbage (psychological as well as physical) and to dig into the soil (of our psyche) before we plant the new seeds (of new intentions/new life). Its passage in our life—especially at these times of the Saturn Returns, is when we have a chance for real change and life-renewing rewards. How fascinating it is that astrologers today are beginning to see that it is Saturn, not Jupiter, that is truly the planet of luck and opportunity!



There are two Saturn Returns that happen to everybody: the first is between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty, and the second, between the ages of fifty-eight and sixty. Basically the Saturn Return permeates the whole time period. So if you’re around 29 years old, or 59 years old, you’re in it! And as Saturn makes its rounds in our charts (and lives) roughly every seven years, it will be particularly strong if it aspects a major planet in your chart as it returns to its natal position. (Here’s where you do need to see your chart.) So, all Saturn transits give us times of renewal, but these two times are often the strongest.


Astrologically speaking, the first Saturn return is when we truly come into our Self, as before age 29 we’ve been more reacting to what we were born into, than acting out of our true Self. And the second Saturn return is when we get a chance again to reinvent our lives as we move into our wisest Self. Ideally at 29 we would stop doing the same things as we were doing during our twenties, and do something different. Reinvent yourself! And the same is true of the Second Saturn Return at 59--the ways we’ve been living up till now, don’t feel as good—it’s time to take a different route to re-invent yourself. Wouldn’t it be ideal if people could “retire” from their work at this point? But even without retiring, we can start being “pregnant” with our new Self at this time. The Self that will blossom in our sixties.

 So even though our culture sees the age of twenty-one as the time of becoming an adult—it is not so for the astrologically minded--for us it’s twenty-nine. And you may get your Social Security at sixty-five, but it’s at fifty-nine, at the second Saturn Return, that your true personal and social security comes up for review. Saturn Returns can be times of rough passage, or harvest, and they’re usually a bit of both. © Elizabeth Spring This is Part One of three…the rest of the article is on: http://thesaturnreturns.blogspot.com/  Please ask permission to reprint: elizabethspring@aol.com  Or for personal readings: http://www.elizabethspring.com/  

Summer solstice,June 21, 2011, and July 1, 2011 Eclipse

In a span of less than a month we’re experiencing 3 eclipses as well as the turning of the season on the Summer Solstice of June 21st.


One could say that these eclipses and solstice times are about change, transition, faith, and the magic of grace. Transition, as we know, is the process of letting go of the way things used to be and the gradual taking hold again of the new way that is coming into being. In between the letting go and the taking hold again, we are like trapeze artists poised in the air by faith and grace, having left behind the hands or ways that held us, and trusting that we will catch or be caught again, as things move along in graceful rhythm. The transition liminal point is scary. This is the time we are called to trust that we will “walk our talk” and that we will “show up” in our lives, the very best we can.



In times of eclipses or changes, my sense is that we may be thrust temporarily into one of these transitional, almost unconscious places. One might say that the eclipses were feared because they appeared to cause a darkening of either the sun or the moon. Although it is only apparent as seen from the earth, these celestial bodies don’t disappear. Symbolically, the Sun reflects our ego identities and the archetype of the Father, and the Moon represents our emotional nurturing instincts and the archetype of the Mother. So when either of these forces or symbols appear to eclipsed in our psyche, we may feel threatened as we fly through the air like a trapeze artist without the familiar supports of the solar and lunar, the father and mother…not the literal father or mother, but the inner counterparts to these.

 So an eclipse is a New or Full Moon that occurs near the Moons Nodes. They have always signaled times of endings and beginnings, births, deaths, marriages, divorces, career and earth changes. They often feel fated as if we have no control, like being swept along with a current. They expose secrets and awaken us to something that was building on the sidelines of our psyche. On June 15 there was a full moon lunar eclipse in the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius at 24 degrees, symbolically calling us to filter the information overload we each receive, and to find ways to connect the dots of information and insight into personal meaningful patterns that we can digest. It calls us to walk our talk….to be as authentic and yet as transparent as possible. On June 1st and July 1st there are 2 new moon solar eclipses where the Moon casts a shadow on the Earth. On June 1 it is at 11 degrees Gemini, and on July 1st it’s at 9 degrees Cancer. If these are significant places in your astrological chart you may feel it more intensely.

 The summer solstice coming at this time on June 21st is the apex of the masculine solar energy that celebrates the longest day of the year when the sun is at its strongest. It is also, ironically perhaps, the first day of Cancer, the sign most associated with home, family and nurturing. Cancer is ruled by the Moon, so the feminine lunar energy is now dancing with the masculine solar energy and symbolically leaping over the fire together. This is the time when our pagan ancestors lit midsummer fires for purification and protection and prayed for prosperity and creativity. As the masculine and feminine join hands it’s a fertile time to ask yourself: what do I want to create over the next few months? At this midsummer time nature spirits are visible and magic is most potent.

 So taken all together, the symbolic solar and lunar energies have been surging forward and backwards, as we fly through the air, keeping our faith that we will make it through this time of transition. Magic, intention, and faith is surely at play now, as the Universe waits with benevolent hands to catch us. (curious to know more about your chart?  www.elizabethspring.com)

A Peak at the book! "North Node Astrology" Chapter on Family Karmic Inheritance

Prologue for Book: "Predictions: The Private Papers of a Reluctant Astrologer"



"Isabelle CoCroft"




“Falling in love with yourself is the beginning of a life-long romance.” Oscar Wilde






When I first met Peter I believed in predictions. Now I know “it’s complicated.” That’s the phrase people use to describe their love relationships when some things are true and some things aren’t as they’re meant to be. “It’s complicated” we say—like when two people love each other but question whether they are meant to be together—when they look at their partner and say: “I can’t live with you, and I can’t live without you.” In any relationship at all, there’s often the questions of: “Is this meant to be? Are we fated to be together? If so, why? Am I learning something here or simply repeating an old pattern?”


What does it mean to “fall in love with yourself” as Oscar Wilde was saying in the quote above? Perhaps he meant it just as it reads, but I like to think of it more as falling in love with your Self, as opposed to yourself: your ego. The love of self comes before the love of Self, and perhaps both must come before—or at least along with—the love of another person, who also has a very human self and a very wise Self.


These were the questions that were brewing in my head the day I met Peter. I was twenty-nine years old then and I was pondering my single life. In what way might I be fated to be a solitary Soul? Maybe I would never meet someone to love; maybe I was too proud or impossible. In retrospect, I believe my desire to meet Peter is what helped bring us together—and his desire to meet me. The world desire means “coming from the stars.” Maybe it was meant to be.


I still believe in predictions, and I still believe in love. But at fifty nine years old now, I see that the nature of both love and “prediction” and astrology is quite different than what I first believed. Maybe that is the subject of this book: how they are true and not true—they both change as we change.


I know now that astrological predictions are lived out in very unique and particular ways. It can help us get a sense of what’s happening with us, similar to a weather forecast—the storm fronts and the clearings—but we survive the hard times, the storms and droughts, (like the hard transits of Saturn and Pluto) by enduring and waiting and holding our intention…or better said, by honoring the wisest words I’ve heard from the famous Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung: “Hold the tension of the opposites within you till the “Third Way” emerges.”


He’s calling us to wait and endure until the tides of our unconscious and the conscious merge together. He’s asking us to then observe the presence of something we didn’t notice before. Some people see this third way emerging through contemplation while others will spot a moment of “ah-hah”—of synchronicity when the right action or attitude becomes clear—when a synchronistic event arises as if from “a wink of God’s eye.”


When the time is right, when we’ve held the tension of the opposites, it’s as if the burning questions inside us are forced to find a way out—and so we act. We love and don’t love, we make daring moves—when the time is right. When is the timing right? Can it be predicted? Perhaps.


When astrologers look at the predictions for these times we live in—like all those “2012-15 predictions,” they are alarmed by how full of challenge and change they are. The predictions sound complicated and full of optimistic pessimism, or pessimistic optimism. You choose. True or not true, fate is questionable, change is hard, and ideas about destiny and free will change—and always we have to keep making decisions.


Predictions are usually a metaphor; but sometimes they are not. Sometimes a “cigar is just a cigar” as Jung’s mentor, Sigmund Freud supposedly said. Yet sometimes it is not a metaphor—sometimes you clearly see that the cigar smoker is a greedy smelly man with a huge ego who wants your sex and your money.


Even when I was very young I pondered questions of fate, destiny, and choice, and when I heard my first astrologer speak, I decided to deal in the world of the big questions—and in the world of predictions. I decided to become an astrologer when I heard my first “wise woman” speak in a chapel in Boston when I was nineteen years old. She understood something about life that I didn’t; she was an astrologer.


It was then that I decided to join the ranks then of those who were “attempting to read the mind of God.” I believed in astrology then, and that meant I believed that there was a meaning and an order in the Universe that was detectable—as well as standing in awe of the great Mystery.


Again, I found words from Oscar Wilde that echoed this: “The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the Sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the Moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?”


Wow! Powerfully loaded with astrological words, it hints at a humbleness in Wilde himself, as well as the arrogance he was known for—again, the dual nature of the persona and mask of the astrologer: humble and arrogant to dare.


This reluctant astrologer knows “it’s complicated.” And because I knew I needed to learn about my life direction and the soul’s purpose, I wrote a book: “North Node Astrology.” Now I’m sharing about how feelings and expectations change—and don’t change. And so I began writing this book; a little memoir, a little fiction, and hopefully a lot of useful astrological truth for you, the reader.


And so, “Private Papers” begins with the intertwining story of Peter, Sophie, Kendra and myself: Isabelle. There are emails here of being mentored in astrology. There are speculations about predictions, the nature of astrology, and destiny. How much free will do we have, and can astrology help? You will decide.


In this story, Kendra and Sophie are about 29 years old and Isabelle is 59. She’s been an astrologer most of her life, and when she first meets Peter, she’s young, and believes in astrology and the inevitability of predictions. Perhaps she underestimates the power of free will and the Tsunami-like impact of the unconscious. Perhaps she has yet to see how our multiple selves and inner voices form a “committee” in the psyche, and like the planets, each have their own agendas and desires that don’t always agree. We each are such a complex and intricate mandala.


Was Isabelle destined to meet Peter at a certain time and place and marry him? Who knows? Would she accept their relationship as it was, without question? No. That’s not what an astrologer would do. Astrologers look up charts and ponder endlessly. They want to know: Were these two people meant to be together or not? Was the hand of fate involved? Why?


And, what about the “Predictions” for us all, now? What about that ending of the Mayan calendar in 2012? Or the astrological “Grand Cross” we are all living through during these years—all those gloom and doom predictions calculated because of the geometric relationships between the planets of Uranus, Pluto and Saturn? True?


What about the perfect metaphor of Uranus entering Aries in March of 2011 as the earthquake-Tsunami happened in Japan? Uranus, the planet of revolution and unpredictability literally quaked the Earth. The accuracy of the symbolism is uncanny. But what didn’t make the evening news broadcast—or only slightly—was the compassionate and integrated way the Japanese pulled together to help their people. That’s the nature of the spiritual planet, Neptune when it crossed over into Neptune at about the same time. That good news of renewed spiritualty and the coming together of help from all over the world, is not what the evening news focusus on. It’s the bad news, rather than the quiet integrity of Neptune in its home sign of Pisces.


And what will the metaphors be as Neptune continues to move deeper into Pisces from 2011 through 2025? What about Uranus—in tense “square” relationship to the Lord of the Underworld, Pluto, during the upcoming years? Uranus and Pluto were aspecting each other in the 1960’s as a different kind of “revolution” began—what will it be now?


As a reader, you don’t need to understand or even believe astrology to read this—but you will learn the language indirectly. And if you are curious for yourself, and for our times, then I hope you are willing to entertain a certain evolutionary hopefulness. I say that because astrology presupposes a meaningfulness and a lack of randomness that suggests a mathematical astrological patterning that can be measured and felt—that manifests itself as a peculiar blend of fate and destiny. At its best, astrology is the positive contemplation of change.


Does astrology help us prepare for the future? Maybe. But perhaps what it does best is to give us a hopeful system of patterns, where cause and effect relates and makes sense, even as the concept of karma can make sense. Some of it is personal karma—personal relationships between what we do and what we get—this patterning of “cause and effect”—and some of our karma is simply the human condition. Some of it is the family and national karma that we inherit, and that we feel powerless to control. Some is grace and some is tragedy.


We can, however, regain a personal sense of power and meaningfulness when we look back in hindsight to see how the “dots in the picture of our life and times” are strung together in surprising and synchronistic ways. There are events that don’t always follow the laws of rationality. How much is serendipity, synchronicity or “kismet”? Good or bad, if meaningful patterns exist, it makes sense that a God or higher power has a chance to exist, and that feels good.


The synchronicity of meaning-making, in all forms of spirituality and astrology, is most clearly seen in retrospect rather than in prediction. We ponder the myths and the symbols. We look at where and when we were conscious and where we were…unconscious, or just plain oblivious to what we might have known.


We are products of our time—like the grapes in a vineyard that take on the quality of the time and place in which they were grown, we too take on the qualities of the place and time we were grown in. Are you a 1959 type of “grape” that came from a rich soil in Southern France? Or were you cultivated in the stony grounds of a city during a time of war? Your astrological chart is based on this: the day, time, and place you were born, and then the constant movement of time around this.


Most of us want to know more—we want to grow into a larger wiser consciousness. We want to imagine our futures, make good decisions, and create priorities and intentions. We look at how planetary “predictions” may affect our lives. And we go to deeper to find the wells of spirituality and love that anchor us.

This journey of living out our personal story—the hero’s journey—is the subject of this book, as is the changing nature of life and love as we ripen and grow through the years.


                                                 ****


And so Isabelle met and married Peter before this particular story begins. She was an astrologer of a certain vintage, and a woman of a certain nature…but then, she took another turn…



*** "Predictions: Private Papers of a Reluctant Astrologer" will be published this summer.

An Unexpected Surprise...

Dear Elizabeth~
          I finally bought your book on my Kindle "North Node Astrology: Rediscovering Your Life direction and Soul Purpose." I was inspired to buy it after reading your heartfelt piece, 'Simple Grace', on your blog about your mother's death.
 I am nearly finished, after not being able to put it down for several days! Thank you for this refreshing and intellignet piece of work. Your writing is clear, beautiful and highly engaging. Thank you."
 ~ Laurie Farrington

Chiron: Key to Relationships and Story of the Wounded Healer

 Chiron: the Key


Peter was supposed to arrive by evening, though I didn’t know just when. Sophie had just left me alone in her apartment as she went out to get us some food for supper--maybe something for Peter too if he showed up as planned. I wondered if it would be awkward, and if we would all be making small talk instead of being with everything that had just happened. I hoped not. I had spent the day talking with the insurance adjustors about the fire, and started making arrangements for mother’s funeral. Sophie had been a constant help and ally.

I had a few moments for myself, so I took the time to look at the charts again--to see the aspects for the fire, Mom’s passing, and even now. I wasn’t surprised to see a harsh aspect between Mars, Uranus, and Pluto had just passed. And Jupiter was there, helping to release the past with mother, and my tendency to hold on to all the ways I cling to my old ways of thinking. Jupiter held promise for new possibilities. What interested me most though, was Chiron.

Chiron is a strange little astrological symbol that looks like just like a key—but in reality, it is a “planetoid” between the two major opposing planets of Saturn and Uranus. Not all astrologers use Chiron, because it’s not a major planet, but it has a story to tell us. It’s in-between place alludes to the place in our Soul that is infused with a sense of aloneness, introversion, and independence. It can reflect the wound of feeling isolated even when with others.

The mythological story is that Chiron was a centaur, half man and half horse, who was the son of Saturn. He had been shot with a poisoned arrow by his friend Hercules, and was never able to heal himself. Yet in his attempts to heal his wound, he ended up saving the life of Prometheus (sometimes thought to be like Uranus) and in the process of his learning how to heal himself, he became a teacher/healer to the other centaurs. Chiron reminds us that there is nothing to fix, to cure, or get rid of---sometimes healing is all about acceptance, another word for love. The key to finding “the wounded healer” may be to simply remember and use the wisdom that we already have inside us. To accept what is, and to use it.

And so I poured over my chart, Sophie’s, Peter’s chart and even Thomas’s Chiron. The symbolism seemed to fit with what I knew about each of them, and of course, the most telling of it was in my chart. Chiron was in the 7th house of relationships, in Scorpio, the sign of death and rebirth—of forgiveness and deep healing—or bitter resentfulness. I knew I needed to turn the key to life, not death, to forgiveness and love. But knowing something is not the same as doing it. Yet it seemed as if something larger than us had orchestrated this moment in time, and I simply didn’t know what to “do” with all the feelings that were coming up for me.

And so, while Sophie was out, I opened the only book I had retrieved from the fire—the one that was in the bottom of the box of “Kendra’s” email letters. I read: “Chiron implies that the inner wound contains a gift and that the healing journey is the process of discovering that gift. By embracing Chiron, we move from fear and holding, to love and sharing. When the gift of the inner wound is embraced and accepted in ourselves and each other, we can use this key to open the door. Sometimes the key moves in the direction of Saturn: of doing what we need to do to gain more security and honoring limitation, and sometimes it moves in the direction of Uranus, to freedom and inter-dependence rather than dependence.”

I needed to decide. How was I going to play out my Chiron in the 7th house of relationships? What could freedom look like for me? What could security look like? Would I want to truly open my heart again to Peter, or would I be happier exploring the mystery of Thomas? And….a different life?

Just then Peter walked in the door. Sophie had left the door unlocked, so it was just us—our moment. He looked nervous.

“I’m sorry...so sorry Isabelle.”

“For what?” I answered, as if I didn’t have a hint of what this was about.

“For breaking our story; for not being there when you needed me most. For saying ‘no’ to you in so many little ways, instead of finding a way of saying ‘yes’.”

“…instead of yes?” I smiled. What a good start I thought, but then, I too was sorry and more than a little scared. It all seemed so much out of my control.

And then I heard myself saying: “I’m sorry too. Really sorry for all the ways…for all the ways I…didn’t love you too…for when I wasn’t there for you. For the ways I said ‘no’ to you or made you seem less.”

He handed me something. “I went to the store today for something to bring you tonight—I didn’t know what to bring or say. Flowers or….I just didn’t know. But I ended up standing in the card aisle, and I saw this one and then I started crying, so I knew…well, I knew then.” He handed it to me. Hallmark would love this, I thought for a second, but then I stopped my cynicism.

I saw that it was a part of a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer—I read it aloud: “It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it’s not pretty…and if you will stand on the edge of the lake with me and shout to the sliver of the moon: Yes!” Inside the card it simply said: I love you.

That’s what I always wanted from Peter. And this was what he was saying he wanted that from me. Could it be that we were now ready to love in a new way--a way that wasn’t just about “young romance of wine-tinged dreams?” A love that included birth and death, old age and sickness, fires…and even long airplane flights—or simply doing the boring but necessary things that need to be done next? For us, it seemed to be about the willingness to give each other freedom—the feather of a bird; our wings as well as our nests…

I had been carrying the wing of the kingfisher bird ever since the day Peter took it from the dead bird on the shores of Jung’s lake. I barely understood why it meant so much to me then, but now a bird’s wing was the most valuable possession I had.

“Ooh…” I sighed, as years of anger and hurt began opening, melting, and pouring away like warm amniotic fluid flowing down my body and onto the floor. It felt the same as when those birth liquids released themselves with a sudden shock that signaled the arrival of Sophie. And then it was as if my spirit soared and took flight. Now we could each stand in our freedom as well as our closeness.

“And here—“He reached into his pocket and took out a key. “This is yours if you want it. It’s the key to the place I’m staying in now. But it’s big enough for two.” I could see his hand trembling slightly, but his voice was confident in his intention. “You can stay there as long as you want, till you decide…about us.”

I took Peter’s key in my hand and stared down at Chiron. He was offering to give me the key to his heart—the key to all our woundedness as well as to all our love. I could take it; he was ready to take mine, to re-embrace the history of our common story. The blood rushed up to my face, as I hugged him.

And so I took this key, this object that could open a door. The synchronicity of it all drove my answer out again and again ---

“Yes, Peter, yes…” We pulled apart for a moment and looked at each other. My eyes squinted at the closeness of his face, thinking how aged we must look to each other now. “Is that you in there?” he asked, as he pulled our eyes together, lashes fluttering against each other.

“Yes, this is me in here, is that you in there?” Behind the gray hairs and wrinkles, it was still us, and it was our best kiss ever. ~

© Elizabeth Spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/  (Excerpt from book: Private Papers of A Reluctant Astrologer)

Astrological Predictions of Death: Simple Grace

Simple Grace



The prediction was coming true…or at least I thought it was. Astrologers proclaim that it is completely unethical to predict death, and the idea of “desiring death” for another is unacceptable for everyone. Yet during the past few months I had clearly seen the astrological “significators” for death in my Mother’s chart, particularly as it was reflected in my chart. Death is more easily seen and predicted by looking at the chart of a person who is the closest to the one who may die. Jupiter, the planet of release, is usually implicated, especially in a case like this where I was the caregiver.



These were the thoughts that were swirling in my head as I walked across the frigid cold parking lot to the nursing home yet again. I had been coming here every morning for two years and I knew I had to face this adversary, this death, now. And I wanted to do it with patience and dignity, knowing that this moment in time was auspicious as well as ominous. It held hope for healing and the chance for love. But I could barely hold my courage any longer, and so I hoped the prediction of release would soon be coming true.



I dug my hands deep into the pea-coat jacket, and retrieved the fragment of paper that I had scribbled on months ago—it was a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that had been sustaining me through the last few years of Mother’s illness. I stopped and read it again: “If we could read the secret history of our enemies we would find in each person’s life a sorrow and a suffering enough to disarm all hostility.” I had changed the word “enemies” in that quote to “families.” It certainly resonated with me now.



The air smelled warm and chemically sweet in the nursing home. I entered the elevator alone and was inched along to the fourth floor. The door opened and as I walked across the dining room I looked for Mother. She wasn’t there. The other patients were eating, though many had their heads drooped over as if they were asleep. Hardly anyone talked. The lights on the Christmas tree twinkled in the somnolent dreamscape.



As I walked down the quiet hall I could feel fear rising like sap in my veins, and it began pouring out my hands. The limbs of my body felt weak. The door to her room was open but I could see the curtains drawn around the bed. Could she have died during the night?



Pulling the curtain open I saw her eyes were closed, her mouth was open and the breathing laboured. I sat down next to her and took her hand in mind and began praying to God to release this Soul.



“Isabelle?” she said, as she stirred and opened her eyes. “You’ve come.” Her voice wasn’t more than a whisper.



“Yes, Mom, it’s me.” I leaned closer. Our eyes locked into an embrace. It was as if she was holding onto me, to life, by the very force of our gaze. We stayed that way a moment, then I had to look away, to let go.



I could hear the heavy footsteps of someone approaching. The nurses asked if I would wait outside as they checked her vital signs. Vital signs…that meant something different in my language.



I walked back towards the dining room and collapsed into a chair. Staring blankly across the room I let my eyes linger on a simple crèche of Mary and Jesus in the stable. The naïve tackiness of the plastic figurines didn’t strike me as cheap or trivial this time; instead I remember how Mother had devoted so much time each year to creating a good Christmas for my father and I. Every year she would set up a Victorian Christmas village underneath the tree—an idyllic village scene where there was always pristine snow, where the skaters always had a glistening mirror lake, and the warm lights of the Catholic Church were always welcoming. She had been a good mother.



But some would say she had not been a good mother. I could still hear my mother’s voice rattling around my psyche—old tapes that never seem to leave: “Isabelle, you must do this! If you cannot do this for me, I tell you I will die. I will kill myself, and your uncle knows this. He will tell others why I died--because of you.” This was how I was raised---there was no freedom: “Do this, or I will commit suicide and others will know why I died. You must do what I say.” How much pain and fear she must have held within, to threaten that to her only child.



In time we had each forgiven the other, but now we needed something beyond forgiveness. The time for miracles was past, but could we hope for something more now—some simple grace? I thought of the simple grace I had felt on the day of my first communion. Dressed in white, like the little bride of Jesus, I wondered if I would feel a tingling as the wafer, the body of Jesus, was placed in my mouth. I believed in this little miracle, and so I experienced something, even if I didn’t shiver with delight—I could feel the sacredness of the moment. As I grew older I lost the peace that came with such simplicity and embodied faith, but in its place came a trust in the cycles of life and nature, leading again to a comforting cosmology of meaningfulness. Astrology had given me that—but now—what would happen if the astrological signs that predicted my mother’s passing at this time didn’t happen? Would I lose my faith? Would I lose faith in the synchronicity and correspondence that existed between the astrological chart and timely unfolding of events? Would I lose faith in God?



I was too tired to think--too tired to attempt to read the mind of God—too tired to think of the relationship between God’s mind and the Soul’s will. The charts seemed to reflect what was happening now, but all I could do was to let my head fall onto the table in in front of me like the other residents of the home. Maybe this is what’s it’s like to die here.





For the first time a slow cleansing trickle of tears began to fall as I allowed my thoughts to drift back to my study, to my sanctuary room. I sat there staring at the astrology charts-- dreaming –watching how the signs had changed once more, but like in a bad dream, I was unable to see clearly, to answer questions…I couldn’t remember what the signs or symbols meant nor if it was an ending or a beginning, or even whose it was.



I awoke to the soft touch of a nurse’s hand on my shoulder. “You can go in now, dear.”



Sitting down next to the bed again, I took Mom’s cool hand in mine. I could see a slice of untouched pumpkin pie on her table, and gingerly I placed a small forkful of it in front of her lips. She opened her mouth and took a small bite and I could see the barest hint of a smile. She looked so very old, and yet seemed so very young; like a sick child who couldn’t feed herself. I wanted to feed and comfort her.



“Thanks honey…I love you…” I took both her hands and held them, trying to infuse them with warmth and life. Then I waited for the rest of the sentence to unfold—the part where she would tell me what she needed next and why. But it didn’t come. There wasn’t any more she chose to say this day. I was shocked.



“I love you too…” I said, surprising myself as a warmth came over me. Maybe this was is what “healing” feels like. Then she closed her eyes as if to close our session as she drifted back to where she had been. This was one of the very few times Mother had ever said “I love you” that wasn’t followed by a “but...” or a condition for approval.



I got up and walked back to the elevator, and pressed “Down.” I couldn’t wait for the slow creature to come to the 4th floor. My courage was tenuous, almost leaking away. Again the paradox—the fear of death, and the shock of feeling loved. The healing of some old wound was almost more than I could take. I couldn’t stand still—I spotted the “Exit” sign and ran down the steps into the fresh cold air outside. It now filled me with life.



Early the next morning the nurse called me as I sat at my desk. Mom had just died. I looked over at the cool blue light of the computer screen and saw that Jupiter, the planet of release and relief, had just conjuncted my Sun, and was aspecting Mom’s chart as well. We had been blessed.



I stared blankly at the signs and the synchronicity of “endings and new beginnings”—those euphemistic terms that were splayed all over the charts, but still a wave of sadness enveloped me as I remembered the painful ambivalence of our love. But it was finished now, and the ending had been both predictable and not predictable.



I turned off the computer screen as a ray of golden morning light shot through the window and warmed my face. I was in awe of the love that had appeared, and finally let myself inhale the hope of a new day. I stood up and moved to the window letting myself be bathed in sunlight and gratefulness for the small miracle of our last visit—we had indeed been blessed by simple grace. ~ (c) elizabethspring@aol.com  http://www.elizabethspring.com/

Astrological Predictions

Predictions


When I first met Peter I believed in predictions. Now I know “it’s complicated”. That’s the phrase people use to describe their love relationships when some things are true and some things aren’t as they’re meant to be. “It’s complicated” we say—like when two people love each other but question whether they are meant to be together—when they look at their partner and say: “I can’t live with you, and I can’t live without you.” In any relationship at all, there’s often the questions of: “Is this meant to be? Are we fated to be together? If so, why? Am I learning something here or repeating a pattern from a past life?” And even if we don’t even believe in these things, most of us are still curious.

These were the questions that were brewing in my head the day I met Peter. I was 29 then and I was pondering my single life. In what way might I be fated to be a solitary Soul? Maybe I would never meet someone to love; maybe I was too proud or impossible. In retrospect, I believe my desire to meet Peter helped bring us together. The world desire means “coming from the stars.” Maybe it was meant to be.

I still believe in predictions, but I know now that astrological predictions are lived out in their very unique and particular ways. How do we survive the transiting “death and rebirth experiences” and live through the hard times? When astrologers look at the predictions for these times—like all those “2012 predictions,” they are alarmed by how full of challenge and change they are. The predictions sound complicated and full of optimistic pessimism, or pessimistic optimism. You choose. True or not true, fate is questionable, change is hard, and still we have to keep making decisions.

When I was very young I lived with these questions, and when I heard my first astrologer speak, I decided to deal in the world of predictions—I decided to become an astrologer. I joined the ranks of those who were “attempting to read the mind of God.” I believed in astrology then, and that meant I believed that there was a meaning and an order in the Universe that was –almost but not fully--beyond understanding. This “reluctant astrologer” knows that it’s complicated. And because I knew I needed to learn about love and loving, I decided to write a book about it: An Astrological Guide to Different Kinds of Love.

And so I began the book and still write long emails to the young woman I began mentoring in astrology. Kendra is 29 years old and I’m 59—but that’s now. When I first met Peter, I was young and believed in predictions of a different sort….a more predictable sort. Perhaps I underestimated the power of free will and the Tsunami-like impact of the unconscious, and how our multiple selves and inner voices, like our planets, each have their own agendas and desires that don’t always agree. It takes, what Carl Jung, called the “Self” to co-ordinate them. I like to think of the Self as the center of a mandala.

So, was I destined to meet Peter that day in 1982 on Beacon Hill in Boston? Would I accept “us” without question? No. That’s not what an astrologer would do. Astrologers look up charts and ponder endlessly. But the question remained: Were we meant to be together or not? Was the hand of fate involved?

And what about now—that Grand Planetary Cross we are all living through, and those gloom and doom predictions of 2012? What about the perfect metaphor of Uranus entering Aries in March of 2011 as the earthquake and Tsunami happened in Japan? Uranus, the planet of revolution and unpredictability literally quaked the Earth, and what about the revolutions breaking out in Africa? The accuracy of the symbolism is uncanny.

Astrology presupposes a meaningfullness, a lack of randomness, a mathematical patterning that can be measured and felt. Fate and destiny. A planet is strongest and acts up when it enters and leaves a sign—and this revolutionary planet, Uranus, had just left the watery sign of Pisces to enter the fiery realm of Aries. Mix Aries and Uranus together— what are we supposed to do? Fear is not the answer. Does astrology help us prepare? Maybe. But perhaps what it does best is give us hope as we look back and see how the “dots in the picture of our life and times” are strung together. Good or bad, if meaningful patterns exist, then God has a chance to exist in some form as well. Call this a higher power, meaningful evolution…you name it.

The synchronicity of meaning-making, or astrology, is most clearly seen in retrospect rather than in prediction…yet still we want to know. We want to imagine our futures and make good decisions—so we look at the many ways these planetary predictions may play out in our lives. It seems to give us a measure of control, and is the subject of a book—this book. And love…

And so, I met Peter and our story began…do you think it was predictable?

© Elizabeth Spring http://www.elizabethspring.com/  (Preface to new book: "Predictions: Private Papers of A Reluctant Astrologer"

Feather on the Breath of God~Jung's Bollingen Stone

When you really know someone, you know what they like. And it should be simple to give them what they like, but it’s not. We don’t even allow ourselves to give us what we need. How strange…is it lack of courage or selfishness? But there are times when we do care and we give.

This was one of those times. Peter cared. He knew what I wanted—he knew enough about me to know that if I was in Zurich there was only one thing I wanted—it was to see Carl Jung’s stone tower that he built for himself on the shores of Lake Zurich. Jung started creating his private retreat late in his life and it took him forty years to complete. He painted life size scenes on the curved inside walls of the solitary study, and he’d sculpted inscriptions and images on large stones surrounding the tower. I’d seen photographs of him there in his eighties, pipe and book in hand, simply sitting and looking out over the waters of the Obersee. His sculpting tools and paints were sometimes shown in the background.

Jung’s tower retreat was evocative of medieval times with its turrets, archways and courtyard. He built this “temenos”—this sacred place, as a sanctuary where he could retreat and study alchemy and astrology during his years of banishment from the psychoanalytic community. It was here that he carved Greek, Latin and astrological hieroglyphics into stones and images that were close to his heart and imagination. Here on the shores of the lake, was the large block of “orphan stone,” a rock left behind by other workers, a stone that Jung carved for himself in recognition of his 75th birthday. Peter worked in clay, and I think he understood Jung’s comment: “I need not have written any books—it’s all here on the stone.”



And that was why we found ourselves outside the door in front of Carl Jung’s house one day. The devastating news was that we couldn’t go in. And what I had wanted to see was not actually there—it was over in Bollingen on the shores of the Eastern shore of the Obersee, and not at his family house in Zurich. So Peter took a photograph of me pretending to smile in front of the house we couldn’t go into, and then we retreated in despair.

However—the next day Peter had an idea. And by late afternoon we were kayaking along the gentle shores of Lake Zurich gazing up at Jung’s numinous structure.

“Shall we go ashore?” Peter asked.

I stared at the imposing stone walls and rusticated doors with the barred and shuttered windows. This was not the kind of thing that Peter would usually suggest. He tended to be one who honored rules and regulations, and would never trespass. This idea was so out of character for him; I must have looked at him as if he was a madman.

“Of course,” I said. “A little adventure.” Peter knew me, and he cared. He wanted to do this for me.

And so we kayaked through the weeds along the shoreline till we hit ground. The tower sat right on the lake, and it appeared as if no one was in sight. There was only the sound of the wind through the trees, the rocks jutting through the reeds, and the lapping of the little waves on the shore. It looked deserted, yet alive. Ivy clung tenaciously to the white rock walls and there was a huge tree that looked like it had been struck by lightning. Could this be the same tree that Jung had spent so many hours under? The one that had been struck by lightning the day he died?

We waded through the mud and held our breath as we approached the arched doorway of the tower. I could see the inscription Jung had carved over the doorway “Vocutus Atque nonvocatus deus aderit”. I whispered to Peter: “It says: ‘Called or not called, God is present.’” I was hoping no one else would be present. Peter tried the latch on the door, but it was locked.

“Come here,” he motioned to me. And like a kid, Peter hoisted me up with his strong arms to look in through a window—an arched opening in the wall..and there was Philemon.

“He’s there! Philemon!” I exclaimed. Painted in vibrant colors on the curved walls was the mural Jung had painted of his beloved imaginal muse. Here was the wise old man, his spiritual mentor. He was huge, with outstretched wings that Jung copied from the iridescent wings of the rare bird, the Kingfisher. I had just shown Peter a copy of this painting the day before in the recently released “Red Book.” This Red Book was the journal Jung had kept during those years of transition and trauma when he suffered the “divorce” from his real mentor, Freud. Some say, those were the years of his psychosis. For Jung, those were the years to paint, sculpt and play in the sand by the shores of the lake.

Peter lifted me down from the window. “Maybe we’re pressing our luck…I mean our time.” Peter said, looking at me as if he was hoping I’d had enough. We both knew there had to be some watchmen around here. I couldn’t believe how quiet it was.

Peters face looked flushed. It must have taken him a lot to disobey, to trespass.

We started to carefully make our way back, approaching the rocky shore. I kept staring at the carved stones around me—and then I saw it. It was a bird, large, recently dead, and with the same outstretched wings as Philemon. It lay under a carved image of a serpent in a rock, and it had the same dark iridescent wings. I reached for it, but Peter pulled me away and hurried me towards the boat.

The land began giving way to sand, then mud, and suddenly I lost my balance. I could see one foot had sunk deep between the rocks. I tried to pull myself up and fell into the water.

Aggh….I yelled. “Its twisted!”

I let myself collapse into Peter’s arms as he picked me up and carried me over to the grass only a few feet away from the Kingfisher. He laid me down softly. I could see the burnt tree above my head. “I want it Peter. I want the bird.”

I could feel myself beginning to shiver. It seemed as if the winds had picked up and the sky was being painted colors. Those clouds weren’t there before.

Peter looked down at me. He looked scared. He looked at the bird, then looked at me. The shivering got stronger. I closed my eyes. Was it getting darker and colder or was I having an anxiety attack? For some reason, I didn’t care.

I thought my eyes were closed, but I could see through them… charts and golden mandalas were radiating through some deep darkness. There was Jung’s chart, and mine...and Peter’s chart-- all appearing and disappearing, overlaying each other. There was my chart with my Sun, Neptune and Venus all clumped together, and then Peter’s chart rising up into it like a developing photograph. His Neptune radiated through my Venus: the symbol of idealism in love…had I ever told him that? And then Jung’s chart arouse, and I could see the glyph of his South Node, the astrological point of past life connection, like a bright star conjoining my Neptune/Venus. Why hadn’t I seen this ancient connection before? Why hadn’t I seen this hint of interconnected past lives? Why was my body shaking uncontrollably?

And then I felt him. Peter laid his warm body across mine…completely. The weight and heat from his body permeated mine like a warm comforter on a cold winter’s day. I could feel the moisture from his breath and I breathed it in like an infusion. The images of light and symbols began fading as I opened my eyes to Peter’s soft gaze. To say I had never felt this before was obvious. But to say I had never seen such love in his eyes was true. It brought me back.

And then he got up. I watched him as he walked over to the Kingfisher. He stood staring down at this almost mythological bird for a moment. I wondered if he knew that it carried both good and bad omens…and how rare it was to see it in these parts. I wondered if Jung had ever seen the bird on these same shores before he painted them on Philemon, his other-worldly mentor.

Peter bent over the dead bird but I couldn’t see what he was doing. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing rhythmically. I could feel the pain in my ankle but it wasn’t more than I could handle. What I could feel was the pull of the earth underneath me-- like a magnet I had been pulled into orbit and didn’t want to release myself from it. I was rooted here, I couldn’t move. I too, was a dead bird. Or maybe I was home. I didn’t care.

Again I felt Peter. This time he had his hand on my chest, gently rocking me, and calling my name. I opened my eyes. He slowly waved a long feather in front of my eyes. A feather on the breath of God. Then he leaned over and kissed me so softly, like the first time we ever kissed. I opened my eyes. Peter placed the feather in my hand.

“Come. It’s not meant for us to stay here any longer. Come with me, Isabelle…” and then he scooped me up and carried me into the kayak.

In another hour we were back at the hotel, my ankle soaked with ice, my heart so full with love, it disconnected me from everything except Peter and the presence of a small wet black feather. “Called or not called, God had been present.” This was a good omen. It had been well worth the trip.
Excerpt from "Private Papers of A Reluctant Astrologer"  © Elizabeth Spring

Jung's Bollingen: Setting for a scene in "Private Papers of a Reluctant Astrologer"

Using astrology and the Power of Your Unconscious in your Journaling

Last week I wrote about using Mercury and the North Node as guides for writing, journaling, and finding your voice. Journaling, in particular, is about soul-making; it’s about creating a way, a vessel, through which a healing alchemy can happen It’s a way to become intimate with your “Wisest Self” because when you write, memories and insights that you may not be consciously aware of can be accessed. When you don’t know what you’re feeling, or why, or when you’re overcome by an emotion, journal writing can comfort, simplify, and help you to gather yourself into a new clarity.


Questions such as “Why me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?” are not helpful, but may make you feel worse. Instead, focus on asking the question: “What meaning does this__(event/person)___have in the story of my life now?” That question tends to give surprising answers—and motivating ones. You can choose to see the problem or question as a turning point in your personal life story/movie. Choose to be the hero and see what imaginative ways she can find to solve her problem or to develop a different attitude.

Search for the “questions beneath the questions” you first bring to your writing. For example, if you write long enough to go beyond your initial “complaint” or reason for writing, you’ll begin accessing unconscious material—answers you didn’t know were there. This usually happens when you keep writing longer than usual—longer than just “venting” and by writing quickly…this gives all the voices or “planets” in your psyche a chance to speak and—surprising—there may be a number of opposite opinions going on within you. (Squared planets have different slants on the same issue.) You’re likely to stumble upon insights as to why people do what they do, and why you react the way you do. Seeing things from several angles allows you to have the opportunity to begin changing “unconscious acting to conscious acting”.

You can also add astrological insight to this by looking at your birth chart and your transits for the day. Allow those un-aspected planets and planets in your 12th house to have a voice! Look to what Saturn and Jupiter are doing in your chart--to what they can suggest—yes, this is the carrot and the stick approach! Saturn will oblige, by reminding you to take out the garbage and organize your paperwork, while Jupiter might just throw out “an almost missed opportunity” to take that class in knitting or sailing…and give you something special to look forward to. Too often we miss the opportunities of Jupiter transits because they’re easy—but easy can become wonderful if you simply remember to say “yes”.

Once you have had a chance to grab a glimpse of some of these insights, write them down as little messages or reminders to yourself. Look at them during the day. In a sense, these are like little prayers or “reminders” to your Self—yes, Self with a capital S—your true Self. Seeing them daily can be a way of coaching yourself—but it’s essential to bring patience and compassion to yourself and others while you’re doing this. Trust in the process. Real change takes time.

Have you found other techniques helpful? Let us know....we're all mining the gold here.

© elizabethspring@aol.com www.elizabethspring.com