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/