Following Your Bliss / Hearing the Sirens' Call

The keynote of our Pisces weekend on The Alchemical Journey was Joseph Campbell's famous line "Follow Your Bliss".  This was something we connected to quite profoundly during our recent workshop, when we explored our lives through the Piscean perspective and the myths and symbolism of that sign.  One of the greatest realisations that came out of the weekend for people was that bliss is not something that you can simply attain, acquire or hope to covet.  Rather, it is something that must be surrendered to.  Like death, it requires us to release the control of our ego and take an uncertain journey into an unknown realm.  In order to touch that realm, it seems that we must become like the poet in enchanted reverie for his/her muse, intoxicated with a divine, more-than-human desire.  Yet that bliss that we crave will elude us the moment we try to capture it, possess it or explain it.  If we truly desire transformation, then we must surely surrender the safety of the well-reasoned mind, for bliss can never be experienced through purely rational means.

Surrendering to the Enchantment 

Yet what happens to us when we do surrender to the enchantment?  The magic straw or golden bough that offers access to the otherworld, might come to us through falling wildly in love with someone, through ingesting a psychedelic substance, through ecstatic dance, kundalini meditation or through other means.  Yet it seems that we must also guard against the experience until we are ready, lest we lose oursleves in that otherworld and lose touch with this one. For if we do not have a strong anchor, a strong sense of alignment or orientation, then it could destroy what we have, our relationships, our vocational path, everything we have worked for.  Sometimes, perhaps that is necessary, in our own spiritual journey.  However, it occurs to me that unless we approach the experience with a strong commitment and intention, the experience may lead us too wildly off our intended course, distracting us from our deeper purpose, path and commitment.  If we do not have a sense of these prior to entering the enchantment, then the enchantment itself may become our "way" and we may become so consumed by the experience of bliss, that we completely lose touch with those around us. We could become messianic in our quest to recapture the experience, once the intense period of divine revelation has passed. In such a case, we are also more likely to attach the experience of bliss to the agent that apparently brought it about.  So we end up associating the bliss with a particular lover, drug, dance form, or meditation technique - rather than embrace the deeper realisation that the capacity for surrendering to divine love lies deep within us and that the agent is simply a catalyst that releases an already existing potential.

I have a Pisces ascendant and Mercury in Pisces rising in my chart, and I feel know this perspective well.  I have had experiences of intense "bliss" several times in my own life, sometimes through love or longing or loss, occasionally through an experience of spiritual awakening, and, earlier in my life, through psychedelics.  And these have always been periods of intense, transformational learning for me.  As I've got older I've learned to handle them better, and found ways to experience the enchantment and taste the "elixir of life" without completely losing my way.  The zodiac has been my greatest teacher, and my greatest anchor in that way.  I have found that the wheel both facilitates the possibility of me experiencing bliss, yet it also helps to bring me back and re-orient myself again in the world with a transformed perspective.

Odysseus: The Piscean Hero
The story of Odysseus and the Sirens really captures the spirit of the Piscean journey. I consider Odysseus (Ulysses) to be the archetypal mythological hero of the Pisces perspective.  Although Odysseus has the sympathy of most of the gods and goddesses, his journey home to Ithaca is thwarted time and again by Poseidon (Neptune), who claims the modern astrological rulership of Pisces. Poseidon whips up ferocious storms that continually blow the hero off course.  (Odysseus angered the God of the Sea, when he put out the eye of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who was Poseidon's son).  So Odysseus meets many trials on his journey home, and in each case he uses his famous wit and cunning to overcome these dangers.  The most Piscean of his adventures is surely his encounter with the Sirens.

Odysseus & the Sirens
The Sirens are great enchantresses, they have bird-like forms with beautiful female heads and faces, and they resonate with the sweetest, most divine music such that even the strongest will cannot resist.  When sailors pass by their island, they are invariably lured by the sirens call to their deaths and the shoreline is littered with the debris of ships that have crashed on the rocks there.  But Odysseus the wily hero, enacts a cunning plan to avoid this fate.  Advised by Circe, he blocks the ears of his crew with beeswax, so they will not hear the sirens' call, and instructs them to tie him to the mast of the ship, so that he will not be lured by them.  He also tells them that each time he begs to be released, they should tighten his bounds, which they dutifully do.

The question that is always asked, of course, is why does Odysseus not simply stuff his own ears with wax?  And the answer, I would say, is this.  It has because Odysseus must experience bliss in order to learn, in order to grow, in order to transform his perspective.  He knows that it is part of his journey to hear the sirens call, to be driven half-mad with passion and desire, to give up the control of his mind and surrender himself to the divine muse.  Odysseus, of all the heroes in Greek mythology, is the one most willing to learn, and most prepared to experience deep transformation.  Yet he also has a clear mission - to return home to his beloved Ithaca, and his ever-faithful wife, Penelope. 


What The Story Has to Teach Us
In our Pisces workshop, we enacted the story of Odysseus and the Sirens.  I myself played Odysseus, strapped to the mast, while the rest of the group played the sirens and the crew.  It was a powerful experience, and we all learned a great deal from it.  It prompted us to enquire into how willing we each were to surrender ourselves to bliss and what conditions we needed to have in place in order to take that journey.  We discussed the meaning of the mast to which Odysseus is strapped and how important it is to have a strong support as we embark on our otherworldly journeying - a strong anchor that can allow us to journey into unknown lands, and that has the strength of commitment to bring us back to our more familiar reality, and then allow us to process the transformation that has taken place.  In the alchemical work that we are doing on this programme, the container or alembic is crucial to the journey, and it is something that we pay great attention to.  One of the greatest revelations for me has been the way that the zodiac itself acts as as a sacred container, particularly when we work with it in line the seasonal journey.  It keeps us aligned and well-oriented as we go through these transformational adventures each month. It seems to have helped foster commitment and strong intention within the groups that we have taken through The Alchemical Journey process so far.

Penelope: Weaving & Unweaving the Cosmos

In our mystery play over the Pisces weekend, we also had someone playing Penelope, his wife, back on Ithaca.  Penelope shares some of Odysseus's cunning, and she has her own way of deflecting the attentions of the many suitors who attempt to win her hand while her husband is away.  She announces that she will only taker a suitor when she has finished making a particular dress.  So she weaves the dress during the day, and then unweaves the thread at night, so the dress is never finished.  Symbolically, then, Penenlope really encapsulate the mutable dance of Virgo (the weaver) and Pisces (the unweaver), the two signs opposed in the zodiac.  At some level it seemed to us that Penelope was in some way the architect of the whole Odyssey, as if she were at some level weaving together heavens and earth, and cosmic drama of events that unfold through the narrative.  And as Odysseus adventure unfolds itself between the integrity of her weaving that gradually guides him home, and the unravelling chaos of her unweaving through which he learns and transforms.

Reflections on An Extraordinary Alchemical Year

Last weekend, we completed the final stage of the 2009-10 Alchemical Journey programme with our sublime Pisces weekend.  In the two years since we've been running The Alchemical Journey as a full 12-month course, I don't think I have experienced a weekend of cathartic wonder quite like that.  It was an absolute treat for me, as we had the whole of this year's core group, and the whole of last year's group participating - the old school meets the new school - it was amazing!  It was the perfect way to complete was has been a really extraordinary year.  Moving The Alchemical Journey to Glastonbury, bringing Anthony on board, and working directly with the landscape zodiac temple has added immense depth to the course, and I believe we now have one of the most genuinely powerful transformational programmes out there - and definitely one of the most original.

When I think back to The Alchemical Journey's humble beginnings began back in 2006, when I created it as a 12 week course, working with the twelve zodiacal dimensions of the law of attraction, it is incredible to think how far we have come since then.  We are now effectively running a zodiac mystery school, working with profound alchemical principles connecting us to the cyclical / spiral wisdom of seasonal round and the astrological journey of the Sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac. And the work we are doing is providing the context for the most extraordinary transformation in people's lives.  I am continually moved by the shifts that our participants are making in their own lives.

Our journey around the Glastonbury Zodiac has brought us full circle, from our start point up on Walton Hill and the "village" of Street, we again found ourselves on Sunday close to where we began.  We walked along the "Beckery Salmon" to Bridies Mound, Pomparles Bridge (from where King Arthur is said to have thrown his sword Excalibur into the River Brue, as a final gesture before his death) and Wearyall Hill, where Joseph of Arimathea planted his staff out of which grew the Palestinian Thorn Tree, which flowers around Christmas time.  It was one of the most meaningful walks of the year for me, and it embodied so much devotional Piscean energy.  Wearyall Hill holds the unique distinction of looking like a fish on the map and in three dimensions when viewed from above.  And we completed our walk, by parading down Fishers Hill back into Glastonbury.

I feel we are perfecting and refining a great work with The Alchemical Journey and we have moved so far this year in terms of that.  It has become so clear to me this year how this way of working with the zodiac can really liberate our creative potential, whilst deepening our connection with the soul, and at the same time allow our spirits soar to new heights of awareness and revelation.

My Highlights of the Year:
I've been thinking about some of the things that stand out for me this year.  So many rich, vivid memories - and as they say, "you really needed to be there", but I'd still just to honour them briefly here:

• In Aries, it was the mask dance, and the ceremony with David Hatfield at Wagg Drove on the tail of the Girt Dog of Langport.
• In Taurus, the process we did around money & the beautiful walk through the woods in the Taurus figure.
• In Gemini, the flutter and buzz game, and connecting to the Spring at Dundon Beacon.
• In Cancer, it was that beautiful Sunday we had with Marina and Celia offering their ways of accessing the wisdom of the ancestors, and then visiting Bradley Spring (which feeds the rines that make up the Cancer figure), and meeting Sheila Jeffries, its guardian.
• In Leo, the stand out memory was the catwalk and coronation ceremony, one of the absolute highlights of the year.  "All hail the King / the Queen".  Unforgettable.
• In Virgo, I felt we went some way to reclaiming the power and wisdom of the sign of the Goddess, and the walk around the village of Babcary was amazing - so deeply suggestive of the feminine mystery.
• In Libra, I remember the wonderful altar that Colette created, dancing our ascendant / descendant positions on Sunday morning, the synchronicity of the dove feathers and the tranquil beauty of Sunday's walk in the Libran dove figure around Barton St David.
• In Scorpio, the shadow process that was so profound, the Pluto dances on Sunday morning, and the underworld wood we found - complete with its own River Styx - in Alford.
• In Sagittarius, what stands out is the guided journey & divining from our artistic renderings, then the walk up to Baltonsborough Flights on the third eye of the archer, my personal favourite spot in the Zodiac.
• In Capricorn, the initiation process which was so deeply meaningful and then the walk along the Unicorn's horn.
• In Aquarius, I'll always remember us pouring the rainbow waters of life over each other, dancing our Uranus positions and the magical walk around Glastonbury.
• And in Pisces, so many memories still so fresh - the fish dance, Orpheus, the river of life, the Odysseus mystery play, the Neptune astrodrama pieces, and then the most sublime walk in the zodiac and discovering Bridies Mound within such a profound ritual context.

Well the cycle continues, and while we may pause for breath for a couple of weeks, our attention will soon turn to the new programme, when it all begins again in Aries, as buds break through on the branch and Spring begins in earnest with its full-on fiery force!  Our Aries weekend, "The Alchemy of Intention" takes place in Street (near Glastonbury) on 27th / 28th March.  Hope those of you reading this will join us on the journey this year as and when you can.  I have a strong feeling it's going to be the best year yet!

love & blessings
John

Pisces: Diving Deep into the Mystic Ocean

“And the seasons, they go round and round, and the painted ponies go up and down. We’re captured on a carousel of time…in the circle game”. I find Joni Mitchell’s sublime lyric quintessentially Piscean and it always reminds me of this phase of the year as the Sun journeys through Pisces and returns symbolically to the ocean of possibility from which new life can emerge in the Spring.

Melting...
Pisces epitomises the ups and downs of the circle game better than any other. It is traditionally considered the 12th and final sign of the zodiac, and is the third sign of the winter triad returning us to Spring Equinox where the astrological round will begin again in Aries. In Pisces, the contracted crystalline forms of winter are dissipating and becoming less defined. The ice is melting, and as the earth begins to warm up again, ground water breaks the surface and rivers flow. Nature is softening her brittle edges and dissolving her winter identity.

Surrendering...
Pisces is a sign that is full of paradox and apparent contradiction. It is famously associated with struggle, the two fish tied together pulling in different directions, yet is also the sign of surrender, where we sacrifice our attachment to a particular identity and learn to accept what must be. To sacrifice really means 'to make sacred' - or to return to what is sacred - through giving up something of significance to which we have become attached. In the Christian calendar, the Pisces phase corresponds with the season of lent, the season of fasting, traditionally a time to go on retreat or retire to a meditative or reflective place so that we might become ready to receive the new creative shoots of life that break forth at the Spring Equinox.

Poeticising...
Pisces is associated very strongly with the poetic impluse, where attempts at reason and logical deduction must be suspended if we are to be granted access to the mystery of who we really are. The Piscean phase of the journey resonates with the idea that the truth can only be reached through myth and metaphor. Pisces is synonymous with a profound ambiguity where nothing is certain. It is the phase of the journey where we might be well advised to seek guidance from those in our society whose perspective might normally be overlooked - the underdogs, the mystics, the artists, the storytellers, the disenfranchised and disadvantaged in society, for they may understand something that we have forgotten in our quest for distinction and success, clarity and order.

Dreaming...
The dreamtime of aboriginal Australians is far from delusion or escape, but rather connects the tribe to its origins, and to its deepest more-than-human reality. Our over-rational western biases tend to marginalise the importance of dream time and reduce the imaginal realm to mere thought projection, thus explaining it away in the rather narrow terms of humanist psychology. Yet the Piscean injunction is to truly to surrender rational control and open ourselves to the diverse possibilities that emerge from the mystic ocean. We can learn from nature at this time of the year, just as the crystalline forms of nature dissolve and dis-integrate, so we might which explore aspects of our own hard shelled identity we might be willing to relinquish.

Enchanting...
In numerous ancient mystery traditions from cultures spanning the globe, it was the task of the initiates to pass through astrological twelve gateways of experience in order that they might truly come to know themselves from the rich diversity of perspectives that the zodiac presented them with. Each sign of the zodiac carries within it the potential for philosophical transformation and as we journey around the year, consciously embracing and embodying these 12 archetypal energies, we are in essence, enacting an ancient, alchemical mystery play. By entering into the mysteries of the astrological wheel, with its ancient symbolic coherence, we can reconnect us to a paradigm of meaningful co-respondence, which Jung called synchronicity. Indeed, the enchantment that the zodiacal wheel casts on our imagination can liberate us from the suffering we experience from our attachment to the carousel of time.

"To Make a Difference, We Must Be Different"

"To make a difference, we must be different".  Aquarian Abraham Lincoln said something along those lines - having the willingness to stand out, go against the grain, dance like no-one is watching, and love like it's never going to hurt.  Aquarians seem to have a way of being themselves regardless of what others think of them.  And as we enter the mystery of this zodiacal perspective, our work is to release that freedom of expression that flies in the face of social convention and throws a spanner of works of the rules of etiquette and decorum.  Yes, free-spirited Aquarius gives us the wings to fly into a future of our own choosing.  Yet the goal for Aquarius is an impersonal one.  Unlike heart-centred Leo with his proud individualism, the water-bearer pours forth the waters of life for humanity as a whole, as a community as network of interconnected beings.  So we remove our own ego from the centre of the play and become "just" another member of the troupe.  The trick is to do that without losing our individual expression!

The Aquarian perspective seems to elevate our consciousness to a higher plane and lifts us above the fluctuating contingencies of feelings and passions, to a cooler, more detached realm of ideas and ideals.  It puts us in in touch with the humanity that we share in common with one another, and by adopting this perspective we can begin to glimpse the possibility of how we might live together in a community of shared values and principles. 

The sign of the water bearer holds the tension of sameness and difference and can help bring us together as diverse communities. Through accepting that we originate from a common source, it teaches us to release our need to protect only our own clan, as we learn to accept our differences, embrace the myriad expressions of life.  It's rainbow colours remind us that any form of meaningful unity can only ever be achieved through preserving and encouraging its diversity, and allowing that to emerge organically from its grass roots.  Indeed this is really the great tension that exists in Aquarius, for it is so much the sign of ideals, and marvellous plans and schemes that seem to work perfectly on paper yet can prove a disaster in practice if they (all too easily) overlook the contingencies inherent in the creative unfolding of life.  During our Aquarian weekend, we looked in some depth at Living Systems Theory, and one of the things that really struck a chord with me about that was the life never unfolded just according to the plan, but always with an element of innovation and surprise.  The key to evolution, according to Fritjof Capra is not adaptation, as Darwin had it, but creativity.  This is so evident in the human beings evolve their understanding, but equally it is a key component of how living systems evolve also.

The Aquarian Bird's Eye View

The Alchemical Journey will shortly be entering its Aquarian phase and on 22nd/23rd January, we will be entering into the Aquarius perspective for our monthly weekend workshop. Having climbed to the summit of the mountain in Capricorn and entered the consciousness of the initiate, made our declaration of commitment and taken our stand in the world, it is now time to come down the mountain and share our elevated understanding with the world. From its lofty elevation, looking toward humanity from a high place of understanding, Aquarius is able to see life as an interconnected web, a network of relatedness, the unity in diversity. In this way Aquarius is like an eagle, flying high above the world, able to see the bigger picture and offer that up as wisdom. Katharine Maltwood identified Aquarius as an eagle in The Glastonbury Zodiac, rather than the more familiar water-bearer and the symbolism certainly seems to fit the sign.  This is a freehand drawing of hers, depicting the Aquarius figure. Note the chalice well marked on, and Glastonbury Tor, which is the beak of the bird.

Anthony and myself have walked the Aquarius figure with Alchemical Journey groups on two previous occasions, the last being when we made our promotional film. The walk takes in many of Glastonbury's most prominent sights, including Glastonbury Tor (the beak), the Red and White Springs, the so-called Gog & Magog oak trees, and St Edmund's Hill (which is one of the bird's wings).  A remarkable thing happened at the top of the Tor.  Anthony was addressing the question of why Aquarius was represented by a bird, rather than a human figure, and at that moment a hawk flew close to us and turned and looked directly at us.  It was a remarkable moment of synchronicity and the timing of it seemed to confirm the "rightness" of the bird symbolism.  Kevin and Tim, our film-makers, were sharp enough to catch the moment on camera and it features in our film and some of you may have seen it. We walked the figure in the snow in early February last year - here's a pictures from that walk:

So perhaps what that hawk was reminding us of was the way that Aquarius gives us that bird's eye view.  Aquarius is unique among astrological perspectives in having the ability to rise above the human condition and to some extent detach itself from the unpredictable contingencies of human emotions.  Aquarius must stand apart from the human experience, and at times, fly close the wind in order to appreciate the web which connects the nodes of our unique identities together into a seamless dance.

Aquarius challenges us to hold the tension between our uniqueness and our similarity to those with whom we share the web and it challenges us to express whatever it is that makes us stand out in the world.  In Capricorn we stood up and accepted the mantle of responsibility.  Now, in Aquarius, we stand out from the crowd and express our difference, and through that, realise the unique difference that we each make in the world. This is the sign of the future and we will be journeying into the future in our imaginations, as together we co-create a coherent vision of what is to come as we prepare to enter the Aquarian Age.

For more details of our forthcoming Aquarius workshop, click HERE

Walking the Horn of Capricorn

I began 2010, on new year's day, with three friends walking along Ponters Ball, the Horn of the Capricorn figure in the Glastonbury Zodiac.  Blessed with fine weather we walked slowly and deliberately along the ancient earthwork in the direction of the setting sun, imagining that we were taking into ourselves the magical energy of this most sacred of landscape symbols.

The horn of the goat, or in some representations, a unicorn, starts at the pineal gland in the head of the animal and then stretches to the south-west for about 2/3 of a mile, as Ponters Ball rises about 20ft in elevation.  The Capricorn figure itself ranges over an area of about four miles across north-eastwards in the direction of Shepton Mallett, stretching from Havyatt at the head/horn (closest to Glastonbury) to Launcherley Hill at his hind leg.  On our alchemical journey walk in December we focussed on the horn as being the potent symbol of initiation, the threshold between worlds, the experience of cornucopia (nature's abundance), and the realisation of our true nature.

The raised earthwork of Ponters Ball marks the boundary of the sacred enclosure of Avalon, demarcating it as sacred, protecting it from unwelcome intruders, and signalling the appropriate way by which to enter it.  The name Havyatt was originally hagyatt, "hagy" meaning heaven or sacred place, and "yatt" meaning gateway.  So this is the gateway to Paradise (one of Glastonbury's former names), and this indeed was certainly the traditional way that one would approach Avalon, which is olden times was surrounded on three sides by water.  Here's a photo of Ponters Ball taken by Lone Bang, who has been taking groups around The Glastonbury Zodiac for several years.  Her website is:  http://www.zodiactours.co.uk

So, having parked our cars in a makeshift little parking bay off the A361, we crossed the road and walked through the field down to Norwood Farm on the nose of the goat and then back up through the head to the pineal gland gland, all the while blessed with the most stunning views of Glastonbury Tor.  The pineal gland at the base of the horn is also considered by Serena Roney-Dougall to be the third eye point of the Glastonbury figure.  Serena has identified third eye points for most of the zodiac figures and indeed most of them are water features in the landscape.  In the Capricorn figure a stream extends north-eastwards from the pineal gland and it is indeed a powerful spot.  From there we walked up toward the horn.  And here's a shot of us walking along the horn.

A curmudgeonly old gatekeeper lives at the house by Ponters Ball where it crosses the A361 - a real Saturnian figure - and he prevented us from taking the short cut to rejoin the horn across the road, so we we had to take a roundabout route via the Baltonsborough road and cutting the across fields on the north side of the A361.  We then began our walk along the horn in ritual silence.  It was a deeply profound, moving experience and one I would highly recommend you do as and when you have the opportunity.  It seemed an entirely appropriate way to enter the new year.

The Astrology of 2010

So here we are in 2010, a new decade, and, according to the traditions of numerous ancient civilizations, the most anticipated decade for millennia. And while many are speculating about the Winter Solstice of 2012 & the end of the Mayan long count calendar, we astrologers are still very much focussed on the astrology of 2010.

The Cardinal Grand Cross - 7th Aug 2010
This year sees some very powerful planetary line-ups. The most striking of these occurs as Saturn, Pluto & Uranus form a challenging t-square in the cardinal signs over the summer. Indeed between 30th July and 7th August this year, we will experience a specific planetary configuration of the highest potency, prompted by Saturn & Mars entering the sign of Libra and a cardinal t-square forming into a grand cross. On 7th August, Saturn, Mars & Venus are conjunct in Libra opposing Uranus & Jupiter in Aries - making a grand cross with Pluto in Capricorn opposed Moon in Cancer. This whole configuration is exact within 5 degrees spanning the first 5 degrees of the cardinal signs. (see chart below).

It is many years since we have experienced a cardinal grand cross of this magnitude and it suggests to me that the events of this year carry tremendous significance for the future of humanity and our planet. We could call it a make-or-break year, a year where the choices we make and the actions we take carry a greater weight and importance and we may feel the weight and expectations of generations past and future upon our shoulders in a particularly intense or focussed way. I see this as a year where we are all being held to account, challenged to act with the highest integrity, to stand up for what we believe, align ourselves to our own deepest truth and act from that place. We are living in extraordinary times of unprecedented change, both in terms of consciousness shift and in geo-polictical-economic terms. As an astrologer, I cannot help but identify the energy of 2010 as being absolutely pivotal to those changes. (I will publish a longer article that goes into more detail about this in the near future).


Lunar Eclipse on Winter Solstice 2010
One of the most remarkable astrological phenomena of the year concerns the winter solstice sunrise, which, on 21st December 2010 coincides with a total lunar eclipse. This is the only lunar eclipse that will occur over this period of 36 years or so during which the winter solstice sunrise is directly aligned to the Galactic Centre. The Mayans, among other cultures, have identified this dark rift in the milky way galaxy (between Sagittarius & Scorpio) as the cosmic source of all creation (and destruction) and they have specifically tied their mythological and calendrical traditions to its winter solstice alignment. It is the place to which the Mayan shamans have always ventured on their visionary journeys in order to gain wisdom and understanding. On Winter Solstice this year, thanks to the lunar eclipse, and for the only time during this period of solar alignment, the Moon, Earth, Solstice Sun and Galactic Centre will all be in perfect alignment.

On a personal level, the astrological energy of this year has may have very significant implications - we all have our part to play in the incredible story that is unfolding on our planet. Those of us with planets in the early degrees of the cardinal signs may feel this alignment particularly powerfully this year, but we will all experience it at some level in our own personal lives. This is a challenging time, but also a time of extraordinary opportunity.

Astrological Consultations with Myself - January Discount
If you would like to gain some personal insights into how best to work with the astrology of 2010 in your own life, then I am offering my customary January discount on astrological consultations. So until 31st January, a 90 minute consultation with me will cost £70 (normal price: £90). Consultations can be conducted either face-to-face in Glastonbury (where possible) or by phone. All sessions can be recorded digitally and sent to you as an mp3 file, or recorded onto a CD.

Capricorn: Taking a Stand

The Gateway of the Initiate
In the midwinter phase of the astrological calendar (21st Dec - 20th Jan) we encounter the sign of Capricorn, the goat fish, and this sign really holds a unique place in the astrological mystery tradition.  For it is both the doorway of initiation, through which enlightenment is finally attained, and the portal through which the initiate willingly surrenders his/her divine condition, and returns to earth, cloaked in human form, to serve humanity.  An esoteric keynote for Capricorn runs:  "Lost am I in Light Supernal, yet on that Light, I turn my back."

Capricorn's Myths and Traditions
Capricorn is represented by a goat with a fish's tail, and we can trace its origins back to the founding Mesopotamian deity, Oannes or Ea.  This great being of wisdom, vision and vast intellect, brings forth the arts of civilisation to humanity, and periodically re-incarnates during periods of crisis or cultural/spiritual transition in order to instruct mankind.  In the Greek tradition, Capricorn is Pan, the goat-foot god, the god of wild hills and mountainside, overseer of shepherds and nature's sensuous delights.  In the Christian tradition, the sign of Capricorn becomes demonised along with its ruling planet Saturn (who becomes Satan), and Pan (along with the pleasure of the flesh that he invokes) becomes synonymous with the Devil.  Indeed, Capricorn has always been a sign traditionally revered, feared and made "scapegoat" in more -or-less equal measure. As I mentioned, Capricorn is the also the sign of the spiritual initiate or teacher, and it is into this sign that the dying-and-rising saviour of the culture is traditionally born; Jesus following Mithras, Horus and many other great mythical half-human/half divine figures are symbolically born on 25th December, the moment when the winter solstice sun begins to rise again. Esoterically, Capricorn represents the gateway through which the soul ascends, and this is traditionally with the moment when the Sun experiences its annual re-birth at Winter Solstice.

Proving Your Worth
Capricorn is a practical earthy sign, dour and determined, strategic, marked by an uncompromising ambition and single-pointed focus. The sign is ruled by the planet Saturn, Cronos, Old Father Time. It is Saturn who checks our stride, keeps us in time, and trips us up if we ignore the dictates of the unforgiving winter season that he presides over in his guise as Father Winter. Under Saturn's auspices, the Capricornian perspective commands respect and discipline, order and structure. In the yearly round, the Capricorn phase is a time of resolution and commitment to a long term future.  Saturn demands his pound of flesh and he often materialises in our lives as an authority figure who confronts us with limitation, criticism and examination.  Saturn demands that we prove our ability, commitment and dedication to task before we may be allowed to pass through the portal.

Saturnalia
It is a wonderful paradox that in the Capricorn cycle of the year, with all its weighty associations, we should also encounter the tradition of Saturnalia, out of which our modern Christmas festivities, and likely the "12 Days of Christmas", most probably originate. This is where we see the Capricornian Pan come to the fore.  Saturnalia was a time of the year around winter solstice when society's roles were reversed.  The servant becomes the master and the master temporarily becomes his the attendant of his own employee.  The name Saturnalia derives from a tradition where the people of Rome would bind the statue of Saturn with ropes as an act of defiance against authority - and this was sanctioned by the powers that be every year for a limited period of time. Saturnalia was, and still is, a time to make merry, to unleash the wilder side of one's nature and reconnect to the free spirit of Pan.

Declaring Your Stand in the World
Saturnalia aside, Capricorn remains a sign of mission and purpose, accountability and integrity. When we walk the Capricorn way, we must consider what it is that we are willing to stand for, what we are prepared to put our weight behind, and put our head above the parapet for. On The Alchemical Journey this month, we are enquiring as to whether we have a sense of mission in our lives, asking questions like: “What am I here to do?”; “What am I setting out to achieve?” and “What is my stand in the world?”. We’re exploring what success really means to us and how to balance our worldly ambitions with our need to stay connected spiritually and to remain meaningfully engaged with those around us.

Out of the Darkness Fly the Arrows of Inspiration

Knowing how passionate I am about the link between the zodiac and the seasonal cycle from which its meanings derive, people often ask me how I reconcile the fact that the fire sign Sagittarius falls within the darkest season of the year.  I have done a lot of searching reflection on this over the years and have come to see how absolutely perfectly it fits.  We can easily see how the other fire signs, Aries and Leo work perfectly with the element in a very visible and obvious way.  Aries is the like the first buds of Spring bursting with life force, Leo the summer heat which makes everything grow so abundantly.  With Sagittarius, that fire comes from within, filled with anticipation, promise, hope and faith.

I often think of Sagittarius as being that sign that carries the strongest "light" / "positive" energy in the zodiac, and this would fit with the symbolism we find in eastern traditions where the yang force emerges strongest when the yin is at its most saturated and we can reach that point in the Scorpio phase.  In Scorpio we faced our darkest fears and shadows, journey into the underworld, as the sun accelerates lower toward the horizon and the realisation of death in nature confronts us, as the nights draw in ever closer.  In Sagittarius, while the night still draw in closer, the rate acceleration of the sun toward the horizon is checked and begins to decrease as we move toward the solstice.  And with that comes the ritual realisation that the Sun will return again, and it is this event which is anticipated in Sagittarius.  This is celebrated, of course, in Christianity, with the season of Advent - which anticipates the birth of Christ, perfectly synchronous (and many would say derived from) with the Winter Solstice tradition which honours and celebrates the return of the Sun.  So in Sagittarius, we can be inspired, like Magi-astrologers who predict the holy birth, to take that leap of faith, soar beyond our fears and limitations, rise again out of the depths of our shadows, with renewed hope and vigour.

I have also reflected that even in Scorpio, where we have a very male symbol Mars, which drives us downward into the depths of our soul - the arrow symbol in the Scorpio glyph is beneath the ground level - and represents how the seed of life's continuing cycle is sown under-the-ground, even though it appears that nature is dying.  In Sagittarius, the symbol clears the ground and that realisation of eternal life rises up into the light of consciousness and we are given the possibility to travel beyond death into a bigger, more inclusive understanding of life.

In our recent alchemical journey workshop for Sagittarius, we imagined ourselves re-kindling the fires of inspiration that the goddess Hestia has been tending for us and spreading that fire far and wide.  In the cycle of fire in the zodiac, Aries lights the spark that gets the fire going, Leo tends the fire and keeps it burning with an eternal flame, and Sagittarius, takes that fire and spreads it abroad with infectious energy and vigour.  Sagittarius has the power to light up even the darkest recesses of the mind to realise the interconnectedness of life.  Sagittarius provides the perspective to bring ideas together that we have forgotten are connected.  It connects the heavens with the earth, the above with the below.  It helps us to think symbolically, mythically and of life in terms a journey.  It is the sign of pilgrimage and in many ways it defines our alchemical journey which is really born out of the Sagittarian perspective.

Mars, Pluto & the Poppy - Flower of the Underworld

I have just walked the labyrinth in my garden to mark the armistice, and found myself, on this day of remembrance, meditating upon the symbolic qualities of the poppy.  It is said that when WWI veterans returned to the fields of Flanders the year after the end of World War 1, they saw fields of red poppies where the bodies of their fellow soldiers had fallen, and it is said to have reminded them both of the blood that had been spilt there.  The poppy was then instituted as the symbol of remembrance and it has been traditional to wear one in your buttonhole in the first weeks of November each year to remember those who gave their lives.

"In Flanders fields the poppies grow between the crosses row on row..." (John Macrae)

It has always struck me as so deeply significant, both that November should be chosen as the month of remembrance and that the poppy should be its symbol.  As I have discussed at length in earlier blog posts, this is the season of the dead, the season of the scorpion, and it is the time when traditional cultures in the northern hemisphere honour their ancestors, remember the dead, and conduct underworld initiation rites, of which the poppy is commonly found as the traditional symbol.

The poppy has always been associated with both sleep and death.  In Greek mythology it is a flower of the Underworld, and the twin brothers Hypnos / Somnus (god of sleep) and Thanatos / Mors (god of death) both have poppies closely associated with them.  These two sons of the goddess of Night live in a cave that one reaches having travelled along the river of forgetfulness, the River Lethe.  Near to the entrance of the cave, shadowy figures beckon the sleeper into the cave with fingers to lips ushering in silence, and shaking bunches of poppies in thier hands.  Hypnos is often depicted with poppy heads in his hands and adorning his head.  He is also said to have carried a goblet of poppy juice in his hand as he welcomes the sleeper into his realm.  This obviously makes us think of opium, which can induce a liminal experience between sleep and death, and was the drug of choice for the romantic poets.  Interesting that with so much current focus on the war in Afghanistan, we find that their most coveted and valuable asset (not to mention the most controversial) is the opium poppy.

Archaeological finds at ancient burial sites confirm that the poppy was used as a sacred plant in underworld rites of passage rituals.  In some variants of the Perspehone myth it is through an underworld poppy that Kore (destined to become Perspehone), the innocent daughter of Demeter, is tempted into Hades realm.  And in her long, desperate search for her daughter, Demeter is said to have found temporary relief from her pain from ingesting the poppy.  It is interesting to note that the poppy is a companion plant of wheat and barley, the grains which Demeter granted as gifts to humans.

Poppies make us think of blood, with their bright crimson colouring, and of death with their black core.  I've been reflecting on this in relation to the sign Scorpio, for these two colours represent the colours of Scorpio's two ruling planets - Mars (red) and Pluto (black).  In the Greek tradition, Mars is called Ares, and was the most disliked of the Olympian gods - his warring impulses not suiting the palette of the supposedly more philosophical Greeks (Mars was a more celebrated figure in the Roman tradition).  Yet Ares was certainly an ally of Pluto/Hades - unsurprisingly as the wars he helps to start offer up so many souls to Hades realm.  When considering the influence of Mars, we should remember that many of the qualities that are celebrated in remembrance of those who die in war are governed by Mars.  Courage, devotion to the cause, passion, focus, loyalty and leadership in battle - these all belong to Mars.  And dying courageously for the cause unites Scorpio's two ruling planets perfectly.

There is a more profound aspect to this synthesis of Mars and Pluto, red and black - that again brings the poppy to mind. Having the courage is to enter into an unknown realm - to sacrifice what is known, what is safe, what is predictable and familiar.  And as those poppies grow up between the crosses in the fields of Flanders, they perhaps honour that instinct that Kore-Persephone first modelled. For, in her story, she willingly sacrificed her own pure innocence for the crimson promise of underworld passion, embodied in the poppy, and entered willingly (at least, if not consciously) into possibility of death and transformation that follows closely in its wake.

So I find myself reviewing my position toward the red poppy, which I have always tended to want to replace with a white one, more indicative of peace and light.  Yet for our Scorpio phase of the journey, meditation upon the red poppy seems entirely appropriate. However I might feel about the absurdity and futility of war, there is no denying the compelling power of the Mars archetype. It will always seek to find an outlet for its powerful red energy, and our innate fascination with death and transformation will, however unconsciously, draw us through Mars's warrior impulse into Hades realm.  And until we finally grasp as a race that we are all interconnected and that when we aggress or kill another we are really aggressing or killing an aspect of ourselves, swords will continue to be drawn, in ignorance, in the name of that red-blooded god.

Crying Tears For the Gods...

This post is inspired by a very moving dialogue on The Alchemical Journey forum, about death, despair, grief, loss, shame - and how sometimes we need to surrender our mental constructs and journey deep into the mystery of those perspectives in order to find catharsis and healing. Often it is not enough to just "understand" the psychological dynamics of a situation or apply positive thinking strategies or other mind games. We're in the Scorpio phase, in our natural alchemical cycle of the year, it seems like a very appropriate time to surrender our rational mind those perspectives within a safe ritual container.

Colette and I entered such a container this weekend. We've been doing a very intense tantric course - and it was a real weekend of shadows - it brought up so much shame and grief and deep, impenetrable emotions, which included joy and desire, as well as rage and fear. I cried more deeply on Sunday than I have for many years - without even really understanding why. Colette said she'd never seen me cry like that in 8 years. Looking in from the outside, one might ask why on earth would anyone want to go into that? Why risk opening up such deep wounds, wounds that go even beyond this one life? Yet by doing so we both experienced such an incredible sense of healing and re-connection to one another, and beyond that to something more profound, more-than-human.

We realised the extent to which we just been going along in a really kind of low-level way in our relationship - putting up with the way things were between us. And it reminds me how most of the time, in our everyday dialogues, we are just superficially dancing on the surface of life, playing with words, ideas and concepts - and they don't get anywhere near the powerful truth - which is always buried deep in our shadows through our complex relationship to sex, money, power, death and so on. And those shadows belong to the underworld realm of the soul, where deep memory resides - and that is vital to who we are - not something to be denied or suppressed.

I think astrology is very helpful here - especially when we treat it as a naturalistic path of transformation that can reconnect us to the divine, heavenly half of our natures. As Paracelsus said: "Heaven retains within its sphere half of all bodies and maladies" - that's the imaginal half, as Jung and others have described it - the part that belongs to the soul and cannot simply be "understood", fixed, or rationalised. It needs to be honoured in its heavenly, imaginal aspect. I like what James Hillman says, specifically in relation to astrology:

"The zodiac returns events to the gods. Each time an astrological consultation can return a characteristic to its divine character, polish a problem so that it shines in a different light, reveal the god in the disease, let the client see clearly for a moment that heavenly half, the astrologer is performing an epistrophe, returning a mess in the human to a myth in the gods”

Maybe this weekend was a kind of epistrophe for me (more than an epiphany - I've had those too!), and maybe my tears were for the gods...

In my opinion, astrology is far too easily reduced to an explanatory psychological model. Not by experienced practising astrologers, generally, though I have (too often) heard astrologers attempt to justify their alchemical art in quite reductive terms. For me astrology should not be used to reduce the complexity of our life experience to convenient, psychological "sound bites" - rather it should be capable of amplifying our experiences and opening us up to a more mythical, more-than-human realm of possibilities.

Astrology is not a reductive science, and should not be dragged, like psychology has been, down that cold, clinical and ultimately futile path, where the creative impulse to tell stories and connect to natural rhythms is starved of imaginative nourishment and imprisoned by the impossible fallacy of "objective truth". The paradigm of modern science is too narrow and exclusive to contain the mythic richness of astrology and the complex soulfulness of the psyche.

So when I work with the Zodiac, I seek to follow a naturalistic rather than psychological path, deepening the fabric of our understanding of natural cycles and systems in more-than-human terms. In other words to embrace the persectives of animals, birds, plants, trees, sacred places, each capable of embodying a divine presence. Let us not forget that this is accepted as real by every traditional culture other than our own, even though our maninstream culture has arrogantly dismissed them.

An experiential engagement with the zodiac reveals layers of mystery that cannot be comfortably be explained (away) by purely humanistic tools. Those layers of mystery can help to reveal our embodied connection to the songs and stories of the earth, songs that are ever chanted and re-chanted, stories that are ever told and creatively re-told, with modified and verses, additions, nuances and harmonies.

I believe the zodiac has the possibility to re-awaken awareness of our soul life. Like the zodiac, the soul is irreducibly plural in its perspectives. It helps restore our relationship to the gods, and although it is more comfortable nowadays to call them archetypes, we must remember that they have agency - they are alive, autonomous, capricious, and liable to surprise us at every turn.

The Alchemy of Darkness

"Night and dark are good for us. As the nights lengthen, it's time to reopen the dreaming space."(Jeanette Winterson)

This post is inspired by a beautiful article by Jeanette Winterson in Sunday's Observer. In the article she reminds us just how important it is for our sanity and well-being to embrace the cycle of the seasons, and especially the autumn and winter cycles, as nights draw in and the air becomes colder and damper. She creates a lovely image of her "24-7 friends, high on electric light" coming to visit her at her home deep in the woodlands and her feeding them root vegetables like turnip, beetroot and suede, "grown in rich-black earth...food with darkness sealed in it"!  The alchemical image of the black sun reminds us of Autumn, of the Scorpio cycle - the Sun radiating inwards, into the earth, where the seed of life has now been sown under the ground. 

We have becoming so accustomed, in our culture, to conquering the darkness with electric light, and overcoming the cold with our fossil-fuel heating systems that we too easily neglect the value of the darker season. The ready availablity of perpetual light spawns the illusion of perpetual growth in our culture, makes us believe that we can conquer nature, live beyond our natural means, disregard the fact that we are part of the earth and subject to its rhythms and cycle. Inevitably our language, our metpahors reflect this - metaphors like light, growth, gain, new, development, evolution, progress, expansion, positive are welcomed and thought to be "good". By contrast, words like dark, decay, old, contraction, loss, shadow, negative - these ideas are considered to be best avoided, overcome, put out of mind and thought to be "bad".

This is an extreme perversity of the modern condition, endemic in our political system, our economic system and our personal ambitions. It is hopelessly out-of-balance and entirely unsustainable to wish for perpetual light, perpetual growth, to be perpetually "positive" in our outlook. That is why I love this season and want to embrace it. In spite of the fact that I'm sitting here at a computer with the light on, as darkness closes in outside, struggling with that paradox, yet I want to surrender to the deeper truth that only the darkness knows.

Jeanette Winterson makes the salient point in her article that "when the lights are on" conversations tend to be focussed on outer things, projects and plans, ambitions and strategies for changing things, making them "better". When the lights are out, and we sit by candlelight or around a fire, our thoughts slow down, turn inward and we become more reflective, more sensitive, more intimate with one another.

Last night, my wife and I turned all the lights off in our house and lit some candles. We live in the countryside and it was pitch dark outside, save for the moonlight. We realised that we hadn't sat together like that for a long time - within a few minutes we were reminiscing, journeying into the deeper areas of our relationship, and listening to each other at a level that we rarely do these days, so busy we are with our projects and plans. It was a rich and very rewarding experience.

I am of the belief that we should pursue what is pleasurable to us in life. I am a great believer in pleasure and there is plenty of it to be had in the alchemical wheel of the year. But pleasure comes in many forms and flavours, and each season brings a different flavour. Following the wheel and embracing each stage of the journey, as it takes its turn enriches our lives - keeps us awake to who we are. Eating, sleeping, loving, dreaming, in a way that honours the season we are in offers us so much more possibility to feel connected, in tune, in balance. This is at the very heart of The Alchemical Journey, and the stories and symbols of the Zodiac signs offer wonderful reminders of how to make those connections.

Link to Jeanette Winterson's article: "Why I Adore the Night"

Scorpio & The Beauty of Autumn's Decrepitude

Thinking more about Scorpio and why I love this late autumn season so much, I'd like to share this beautiful reflection by Valerie Easton from a recent article in The Seattle Times. (Thanks so much Marcia for sending it to me)

"I’ve been trying to figure out why I love my garden most right now, when it’s so not at its best. And finally I think I understand: I find the garden’s quiet decline comforting, the mellow colors of autumn soothing. Only this late in the season is it possible to see the garden without a scrim of ambition and hope between me and reality.

It’s not that I didn’t appreciate it…But it’s now, during the garden’s waning weeks, that I relax into its pleasures and see every flower, falling leaf and remaining pumpkin most clearly. And it isn’t just the clarity of the low-lying sun slanting across the horizon; it’s the clarity in my head, where I’ve stopped anticipating, plotting and planning the ideal garden. Maybe this is the only time of year that most of us can get beyond our projections of gardens future and remembrances of gardens past. By this point in autumn, the garden is what it is.

As the weather cools and the days shorten so dramatically, we’re no longer aspiring. It’s not that fall dashes our dreams, but rather that it diminishes them enough so we can accept fall’s decrepitude as beautiful in its own right.”

(Valerie Easton)

The Season of the Dead

I've been thinking about why I love this time of year so much, this Scorpio time, why I find it so compelling.  I'm not a Scorpio and have no planets there (except for Neptune - and I do have a prominent Pluto). Yet for me, an Aries child of the Spring Equinox, so full of the optimistic endeavour, it is during this intimate Scorpionic interface with death, when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, that I feel most in touch with who I am and what it is to be alive.  The Sun entered Scorpio on 23rd Oct and will move into Sagittarius on 22nd Nov, and I thought it was worth reflecting on the number of annual events celebrated during this period that have a Scorpionic flavour connected to death and remembrance, seasonal transformation, due enactment, and the journey to the underworld.

Dia de los Muertos
Today is 1st November, recognised and celebrated in Spain, Mexico & other Latin American countires as "Dia de los Muertos", or the Day of the Dead.  Families and friends gather to remember relatives who have passed, and private altars are built to honour the deceased.  While in the Christian calendar, this co-incides with All Saints Day, it also traces back a lineage in Mexico to an Aztec goddess, Mictecacihuatl, The Lady of the Dead.  All Saints Day is a direct descendant of All Hallows and, in Northern European Pagan traditions, the cross-quarter festival of Samhain, meaning "summer's end".  In the Celtic calendar, Samhain marks the end of summer, the end of the harvest, and the beginning of winter.  Indeed it marks the moment of the Celtic New Year.  Traditionally, doors are left unlocked and food and drink is left out for the dead.

Remembrance Day
And at this time of year, of course, during the Scorpio cycle, it is traditional to wear a red poppy, in remembrance of those who died during the two world wars of the 20th century.  World War I famously ended on 11th November 1918 (during the 11th hour) - and this established the date of remembrance day.  Poppies have long been associated with sleep and death, and they have long been used as offerings to the dead.  The poppy is associated with Persephone - Queen of the Underworld.  In a particular variant of her myth, it is her picking of the poppy that Hades makes grow that allows the God of the Underworld to abduct her.  It is interesting to note that the choice of date for Remembrance Day involved the mystic Wellesley Tudor Pole, who founded the Chalice Well Trust in Glastonbury and was a trusted advisor to Winston Churchill.  Tudor Pole is also the inspiration behind the "Silent Minute", a daily meditation that Churchill instated during World War II, and is often cited as a major factor in unifying the British people during that time.

Remember, Remember the 5th of November!
Next week, on 5th November in the UK, we still celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, where we traditionally light a bonfire and burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes, the Catholic restorationist, who attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605.  He was arrested in the early hours of 5th November during that year, and as a mark of due enactment, and possibly a reminder to others who might be so inclined to copy him, his effigy is ritually burned every year.  Extraordinary that such a tradition should have last over 400 years, but it has, and perhaps it has because of its incredible timing, during the time of the year when it is traditional to light bonfires.  A bonfire was originally a bone-fire, a Samhain tradition where animal bones were burned as a way of warding off evil spirits.

In Sussex, Bonfire Night takes on a different slant, being associated with the execution of the Protestant martyrs. Hence, on 5th November the largest bonfire celebration in Britain takes place in Lewes, the county town of Sussex, and site of the last protestant execution.  This is always a heated affair (forgive me!), and tensions run deep in the town.  Thousands of people attend every year, and the police have a policy of announcing that it has been cancelled to try and reduce numbers, though they would never dare cancel it of course!  Several bonfires are lit simultaneously in different parts of the town.  The most controversial of these involves the burning of an effigy of the Pope.  I attended this event about 12 years ago with my girlfriend at the time, who was Italian - brought up a Catholic - and she couldn't believe what she was seeing! 

And there are many other calendrical traditions around the world that honour the dead at this season, and honour the journey into the Underworld that Scorpio represents.  There is a marvellous website that gives details of these:  http://www.novareinna.com/constellation/scorpioevents.html

To observe so many Scorpionic traditions constellating together at this time of year reminds me of the way that the calendar focusses our imagination and activates our deep knowing about the alchemical year, even if as a culture we have become largely unconscious of the process.

The Zodiac Memory Theatre

When we open ourselves up to astrology through the imaginal realm and get can our whole body involved through play, movement, music, dance - acting out mythical stories, stories of the seasons - we start to remember the possibilities of who we are, where come from, the opportunities open to us. It can give our lives a profound sense of meaning and purpose, as it opens our imaginations to a richer, more meaningful narrative. Through connecting with the mythical images and symbols, we re-connect to our soul.

The work we do on The Alchemical Journey programme draws out this rich vein of symbolic resonance. The work is full of soul. For me, the Zodiac like an archaic memory theatre – a storehouse of cultural, psychological and spiritual knowledge. In alchemical terms, it operates as an alembic, a coherent vessel that can contain the pain, the suffering, the confusion that we experience in life, without judgment or analysis. Instead it offers us stories, stories that we can act out, play with, identify with and allow ourselves to carried away by - within a ritual setting. I see this as a powerful form of alchemical gold-making, or in James Hillman's terms, "soul-making". It enables us to transform our perspectives, and realise that there are many perspectives – when we do that, miracles happen.

I love Thomas Moore's analysis Ficino's astrological ideas. He shows how, for Ficino, illness comes in the form of monotheism, life dominated by a single god, imagiantion fixated in a singular consciousness. The beauty of astrology, engaged with as ritual theatre is that it maintains its polytheistic integrity. Each season has its own characteristic, as does each god, each zodiac sign. They have their entrances and their exits, and by honouring each appropriately at the appropriate time, we encourage the natural diversity of life to express itself.

I talk a lot about embodied learning, experiential learning. We all carry this incredible knowledge and wisdom within us, and when we engage the body as well as our minds, I believe it allows us to access a deeper knowing. When I first discovered astrology 20 years ago it was a very embodied and highly charged experience. It was like being flooded with memories – I was in a real crisis at the time - and it really helped me to weave my life back together in the most magical way. It helped to place my story into a mythic narrative – and that seemed to absorb the pain I was going through and enabled to me to re-create myself again – it was incredible – it helped me come out of a deep depression. It really brought me back to life. And that’s the value of experiential astrology, astrodrama, astrological theatre. It's a way of us bringing ourselves and the world around us back to life: re-animating our experience of the world.

The Imaginal Zodiac

I consider astrology to be an imaginal art and the role of the astrologer, I believe, is that of artist weaving the threads of this mythic imagination in a meaningful and coherent narrative. The Imaginal Realm is the realm of Soul and it is irreducible plural in its perspectives and outlooks. The 12 perspectives of the zodiac cannot be reduced to one another, and neither the planets that govern them. The Zodiac belongs to the realm of soul, and is by its very nature a mystery that it will unfold its wisdom to us, only through our own imaginative participation. As James Hillman says: "the soul is not a sustance, but a set of perspectives..it is the imaginative possibility in our natures, the experiencing through reflective speculation, dream, image and fantasy - that mode which recognises all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical."

The Zodiac has formed the basis of mystery traditions, and initiatory journeys throughout the western world – we see this in incredible sculptures, mosaics and bas reliefs from all over Europe and the middle-east. The traditions have been carefully preserved in mythic memory, and through our own imaginative participation, we can still take that initiatory journey today.

On the Alchemical Journey, we’re really walking in the footsteps of countless ancient mystery traditions, following follow a twelve-fold path of initiation. It’s an alchemical training following the path of the Sun through the seasons, through the twelve months of the year and through the twelve astrological portals or gateways – the 12 signs of the zodiac. It’s really one of the richest and most coherent imaginative frameworks we have available to us as human beings. We’re working with a really ancient form of magical work, and we’re making it really relevant to the challenges we face in our modern lives, but without losing the magic. We’re really careful to honour that magic straw that takes us into the other world, the imaginal world.

We find the theme of the journey through the Zodiac repeated in the Greek, Babylonian and Egyptian iconography, but also in Christian, Jewish and Islamic art also. We find it in the stories of Arthur and his 12 knights, the 12 labours of Hercules, Jesus and his twelve disciples, the 12 tribes of Israel – they all carry a memory of this twelve-fold journey. They are relate directly to the Zodiac. The idea of an initiate taking a cyclical transformation journey around a wheel of animal figures – it has a powerful coherence for our imaginations – and it seems to be deeply woven in our collective psyche.

So The Alchemical Journey is a journey through the Imaginal Sky, the Imaginal Heavens. It is about re-connecting to the heavenly half of our experience, that more-than-human half, that we have neglected so much with our modern secular thinking. The heavens are the place of soul, they are a place where our imagination can play and these fabulous animals and beings in the night sky – they can enchant us – reconnect us to a meaningful cosmos.

Scorpio - Journey into the Underworld

"The dimension of soul is depth (not breadth or height) and the dimension of our soul travel is downward" (James Hillman)

Scorpio offers us a poignant reminder of how the zodiacal journey can serve a process of soul retrieval. It is the experience of the three water signs that most suitably reveal the qualities of soul in the zodiac, as we have already experienced in the sign Cancer. In the sign of the crab, we first level of initiation, through reconnecting with the ancestors, with a deeper sense of home, memory, roots and origins. But in Cancer, we were still in the season of the light. Now in Scorpio, the season is darkening, and it is time for us to take responsibility for our deepest fears, desires, and destructive impulses, if we are to proceed along our soul’s path and re-discover the truth about who we are. In all traditions of initiation there is a journey into the underworld that must be undertaken in order for the initiate to know her/himself. In our alchemical journey process, this is it!
Image courtesy of Josephine Wall

The Sun wears a dark cloak in its Scorpio phase, Samhain marking summer’s end, reminding us that Mother Nature has exhaled all that she can on this turn of the wheel. Revealing the thin veil between worlds, she prepares now to breathe in, focussing deep within herself. While the beauty of her turning colours may have distracted our senses during the Libran cycle, so the stark reality of Autumn’s mission now confronts us in Scorpio. Nature’s once verdant mantle rots down on the damp forest floor, and fungus devours the leaf corpses.

Scorpio is the phase of the zodiacal wheel that we in the west seem to have collectively chosen to ignore, failing to acknowledge our own shadows, or deal with our waste; turning away from decay and death and refusing to see this as essential to the sustainability of life. We have created unsustainable structures based on perpetual growth and increase, which break the essential life cycle of transformation, and pile up toxic debts for ourselves and the planet. Our fast-disintegrating monetary systems pervert nature’s gift of abundance with their artificial reliance on debt and scarcity rewarding the few and condemning the majority to poverty. As Scorpio’s ruling planet Pluto moves now into Capricorn, I believe the self-destructive potential of the corporate structures that prop up these systems will be exposed and, ultimately, transformed.

This phase of the year teaches me the importance of learning to die well, so that I might be able to live more fully, relinquish my dependence upon what I already know and have the courage to face that which I may once have feared. It confirms something for me about the true nature of alchemy. Far from attempting to control nature and bend it to his own human will, the alchemist is always seeking to submit himself to nature’s power and mystery. Through practice, she learns to transform the hard shell of the human ego so that she might enter that liminal realm between worlds and experience the very common ground that we share with plant, animal and rock.

On The Alchemical Journey programme, we seek to penetrate nature’s deep mystery by cultivating an attitude of ‘wonder’ toward it, exposing our imaginations to a range of initiatory processes, which draw on astrological and seasonal myths and traditions. In this way, we seek to complete the cycle of transformation, and thus learn to live both magically and sustainably in our everyday lives.

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." (C.G. Jung)