This post is the first of a four-part series exploring the four elements - earth, air, fire, and water - from an intuitive standpoint, correlating their sensory, emotional, and metaphorical associations with common expressions like "down to earth," "up in the air," "on fire," or "swimming in the deep end of the pool." Plenty of examples and sample charts are given, including Virginia Woolf (earth), Jimi Hendrix (fire), Nelson Mandela (water), and Julie Andrews (air). It was originally published as an article in the June/July issue 2011 of The Mountain Astrologer.
A beginning student of astrology is often taught to memorize keywords and astrological principles as though reading a birthchart were merely a matter of decoding its symbolism in a linear left-brained fashion. Only sometime later does the student discover that the real practice of astrology is a more intuitive exercise using left-brained knowledge as a springboard into unknown territory. In this decidedly more right-brained arena, the meaning of a birthchart reveals itself not in pre-packaged cookbook formulas, but more poetically, through a web of analogies, metaphors, puns, figures of speech, subjective associations and images that make intuitive, if not rational sense – within the context of a specific life.
In 2004, I coined the term “astropoetics” to describe an approach to astrology that considers the symbolism of the birthchart from this more intuitive, subjective, image-oriented perspective. Rather than interpret the birthchart in definitive terms, an astropoetic practitioner seeks to cultivate an exploratory relationship to it that yields multiple levels of subjective meaning over time, compounded and nuanced as his or her own life experience contributes a steady stream of new information.
Most immediately, this relationship evolves by observation of the moment through an astrological lens. The images that arise by way of such observation are often far richer in their metaphorical implications that any amount of speculative interpretation could be for the same reason that fairy tales, dreams and myths have more to say than their merely literal interpretation would allow. Within the astropoetic worldview, the birthchart provides a coherent framework for observation, but what you observe often transcends standard interpretive practice.
The habits of astropoetic observation must be cultivated within a framework that honors traditional astrological principles. But the process itself often yields insight that goes beyond tradition. Ultimately, the personal wisdom derived through an astropoetic relationship to the birthchart is sourced at a level of knowing that cannot be articulated in any preconceived idea or formula.
Meanwhile, to cultivate habits of astropoetic observation, the student can begin with a simple intuitive and self-evident relationship to the symbolism. Nowhere within the lexicon of the astrological language is this intuitive level of understanding more accessible than with the four elements. In this series of posts, I will demonstrate the astropoetic approach to astrology, using the four elements as a focus.
The elements are easily approached on the intuitive level, in no small measure, because they are sensory in nature. We can see, hear, touch, taste and smell them, and these primal experiences automatically trigger a response on other levels of being – emotional, psychological, and metaphorical – each of which yields additional layers of intuitive meaning. You do not need to think very hard to arrive at these additional layers of meaning. You need only observe your internal process and its external reflection as you walk through the sensory door, and let the appropriate analogies suggest themselves.
In the next post, I'll illustrate my astropoetic approach to the elements through the senses.
Links to posts in this series
Part 1: An Astropoetic Approach to the Elements
Part 2: Approaching the Elements Through the Senses
Part 3: The Emotional Correlates of the Elements
Part 4: Going Deeper Into the Astropoetic Imagery
