How the Myths in Astrology help us understand who we are, where we come from and where we go.
Childbirth is one of -if not The- most transformational events in a woman's -and to a certain extent man's- life. Seven months after having my first baby, I fell into the post partum depression, my hair starting to fall in handfuls, I couldn't gain weight, and so many other things that I had to undergo therapy. Then, I learned about a psychotherapy technique using imagery and archetypes. The patient is guided on a journey to the underworld, the unconscious, visualizing what he/she encounters on the road. This works as a guided tour into understanding yourself.
What does that have in common with the traditional children stories read in childhood, the same ones that I read to my own children later? They show images that have a meaning. The images that the person 'sees' in the mind's eye are charged with the meaning that the individual ascribe to them. Those are representations of what is hidden in the unconscious, or subconscious. The archetypes of the children stories have an already set of meanings from the collective unconsciousness. Both, imagery psychotherapy and fairy tales are equally useful to help the person reveal who she/he really is inside. They work in different ways, one reveals from inside, the other from the external world, still both reflect conceptions, emotions, representations of stuff ingrained in the person's identity. The technique works as a movie projected on a screen. Once those images are created in the mind, the patient is able to discover him/herself by describing them. Reading fairy tales or myths, one's unconscious is projected on the story making the detachment possible.
When I was studying for my Masters in French, I became fascinated with the genre of myths, legends and traditional story tales from the old times. I dug into the most ancient versions available of our classic tales, like Red Riding Hood and such. In the beginning they were not children stories, in fact they were like the adult TV shows of the times. Some of them pretty intense and gruesome. I ended up learning that those sometimes shocking stories worked as psychological therapy then. They helped people sitting around the home hearth in the cold winter evenings -dark nights of the soul- to process their most intimate fears, phobias, passions, and conflictive traumas.
Astrology is tightly related to Mythology. Knowing the language of Astrology, one understands the messages those iconic mythological characters give us personally, individually as they are designed in our own unique Birth Chart. Let me show you an example in a chart.
This is the chart of today's transits at my location. Please look at the arrow pointing to the left to a green glyph representing Taurus with the number 10ยบ 47'. That line represents the Ascendant, the Rising Sign on the Eastern Horizon at the moment of one's birth. The sign of Taurus gives the main personality and mission for that Soul for this incarnation. It's ruled by Venus. She is in the opposite sign of Scorpio, in a debilitated position because she is the farthest she can be from her home, even though she also rules the contiguous sign of Libra. In any case, she is in the house of Mars and Pluto.
Now imagine the Goddess of Love, beauty, sweet, delicate, refined, romantic, well mannered, love giving, seductively gorgeous, sitting in the living room with Mars, the warrior, all covered in armor, sweaty and smelly from the battle, aggressive, forceful, violent at times, and with Pluto, or Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, the same one who kidnapped, raped and kept captive Persephone as his "wife". Colorful painting, right?
What kind of Taurean personality would you think this person born today will have? Also, the 7th house of Scorpio represents his/her longterm relationships, the type of person with whom she/he will associate with a higher level of trust. There, together with Venus, we find another visitor to an unlikely house, Jupiter. He can be wise and spiritual, full of knowledge and understanding of higher concepts, but he also likes to exaggerate things a bit too much. With Jupiter there, the picture I described previously is augmented 300 times. Can you see what kind of partner, she/he may have?
Venus was a very nice lady, right? The Greeks called her Aphrodite, she was so beautiful that she was said to have seduced Mars and had children with him. In Astrology, Venus behaves differently depending on the place where she is in her travel around the Sun. She could be behind him or ahead, even though she does not go too far away. If she travels ahead of the Sun she's called Phosphorous, the Light Bearer or Morning Star. Then she is more outgoing, extroverted, more intense. When she travels after the Sun, she's called Hesperus or Evening Star, and she behaves more feminine, her feelings are more reserved, more receptive. In this chart Venus is Aphrodite or Evening Star. This trait describes the nature of the person's Yin energy -regardless of being a male of female. And in a man's chart, Venus describes the kind of woman he will be attracted to. This person can be shy and reserved in love, but may attract a partner that is dominant, jealous, and even aggressive, able to totally transform his/her life.
There are many other factors to consider about Venus the ruler of this person's chart when describing exactly what kind of Venus energy it gives. Because in this case, Venus is also Stationary Retrograde, she is antagonizing with Mars, in a somewhat disharmony with Saturn, she makes loose harmonious connections with Neptune, the Lord of the Oceans, and the Moon. All of that gives Venus a very particular personality, unique to her this day, at this time, in this town.
I'm sure you have read legends, stories and myths in childhood, and you probably read them also again and again once you learned how to read. There is something in them that draw us close to a mirror where we can see ourselves reflected. I think that's why they are so appealing and we like them so much. Bruno Bettelheim in his work "The Uses of Enchantment" says that "There is a general agreement that myths and fairy tales speak to us in the language of symbols representing unconscious content" (pg. 36).
In my approach to Astrology, I sustain that its mythology is the aspect that helps people to understand themselves, individually, to find out their uniqueness. The story telling of those archetypes is what explains our deepest psychological blueprint. Understanding them is opening the door to the most essential answers we seek: why am I here? who am I? what am I doing? where am I going? why this is me? "Modern thinkers who have studied myths and fairy tales from a philosophical or psychological viewpoint arrive at the same conclusion", Bettelheim states. And after quoting Mircea Eliade, he adds "Drawing on anthropological parallels, he and others suggest that myths and fairy tales were derived from, or give symbolic expression to, initiation rites or other rites of passage -such as a metaphoric death of an old, inadequate self in order to be reborn on a higher plane of existence" (pg.35).
This is the perspective our personal astrology gives us. We incarnate again and again, initiating a 'new life', a new cycle of 'seasons' (birth, development, decay and death) in order to better what we've done in previous ones, to change and repair what went wrong before, to have new experiences that progressively elevate our Soul to a higher state. The symbolism in our birth chart is the language that gives us the clues of what happened before, what we decided to do this time around, what is our goal and what kind of work we chose to do to achieve it. "This amounts to saying that initiatory scenarios -even camouflaged, as they are in fairy tales- are the expression of a psychodrama that answers a deep need in the human being" (Mircea Eliade).
Discovering the Myths in our personal Birth Chart can be greatly revealing. We can have insights into our consciousness as well as our unconsciousness. We can develop understanding of the reasons why we make certain choices, like certain partners, develop certain eating habits, choose a certain career, and many other life decisions. A new perspective on things can help us change direction when we're not happy about those. If you are curious and would like to discover the mystery of your SELF, make sure you find out your personal Mythology by ordering a Natal Birth Chart reading.
