I am so pleased to welcome my friend and favorite Astrologer, Laurence Hillman, to our neck of the woods. Laurence will be our teacher-leader for a seminar at beautiful, relaxing Red Corral Ranch near Wimberley. You can still sign up by going to Laurence’s website, LHillman.com and go to “calendars”. Laurence’s new book, “Planets at Play’ is easy to study and very helpful information. September 23-25, 2009.
Astrology is not easy to learn. It is complex and yet worth the effort. Just remember at the outset that it is not predictive or magic. For serious students of the “self”, astrology is helpful in learning about our depth of soul. Read all of Alice O. Howell’s books for a very sweet, compelling introduction. She writes like a loving grandmother and makes it simple.
For those who have studied C.G. Jung’s concepts, Astrology makes all kinds of sense. Jung himself studied it. His teachings about symbols and synchronicity have really helped me in my learning. The heavens speak to us in symbols. Sacred geometry is also worth studying, just to learn about shapes and meaning. The circle is a perfect symbol for the unknowable nature of God. The dot in the circle represents the sun. Squares represent matter or earth. The planets, depicted through symbols, have archetypal meaning for us individually. Just remember, symbols point to truths, they do not define them. Planets, signs, houses, aspects are a few of the terms used in Astrology. I like the way Laurence teaches that the planets symbolize the actors on our stage of life. The signs are like their costuming, the houses determine the place of action on our round stage and the aspects cue in what happens.
This workshop with Laurence will be another opportunity to explore the depths of our psyches. Jung defines the Self (with a capital S) as the totality of the psyche. Since the psyche is connected through the personal unconscious to the collective unconscious just as one individual well is connected to the water table below, that totality is potentially infinite. Our natal chart in no way limits us or forces us. Through greater self-consciousness we can alter the way we perceive experience. The chart is like the x-ray or blueprint of our story at its beginning. I am interested in the connection to Strengths as defined from the Clifton StrengthsFinder from Gallup. Perhaps our talents show up in the natal chart?
The mystery is that outer events in our lives will change automatically as our view of them changes. The very obstacles in our path seem to rearrange themselves to fit our inside view of them. Our free will always operates within the limitations of the givens. We have free choice to become wide awake and aware or to remain “unconscious”, thinking our life is determined from the outside.
Think about circles. The pupils of our eyes, flowers, coins, or the glyph for the Sun. Circles can open into spirals. We make circles with a compass…one arm remaining fixed on a point, while the other arm sweeps in an arc of possibilities. The sound of the circle is OM. Hans Jenny pioneered the research that shows powder on a drum head will form a circle when we chant that sound (A-U-M). Einstein talked about the “circle of known”, where all that we know might be imagined to be inside the circle. Then, as the circle expands, the circumference expands and we become aware of how much we don’t know. The more we know, the more we know we don’t know!
Many of you have heard me say that I trust people who are still learning. This time with Laurence will be rich with self discovery. We will learn and we will grow.