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.

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