Astropoetics

An Astropoetic Approach to the Elements. 4 Going Deeper Into the Imagery

 

This post is the last in 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.

Knowing the sensory (see Part 2 of this series) and emotional (Part 3) correlates to the elements gives us an intuitive language that we can take with us into any life experience in which a given element is emphasized.  We do not need to memorize these correlations; instead we need only allow our sensory and emotional experience of the elements to extend into the realm of analogies, metaphors, puns, figures of speech, idioms, slang expressions, and free associations, as we observe our lives for astropoetic moments.  Out of a simple intuitive awareness of the elements can come unexpected insights into the deeper psychological dynamics being triggered in the moment.  Perhaps an example from my own life will illustrate this possibility.

With Moon in Gemini, Neptune in Libra, and Jupiter – the ruler of my chart – in Aquarius, I can be considered to have a fairly high level of air in my natal chart.  Currently my progressed Sun is moving through Aquarius, and progressed Mars and Venus have joined Jupiter and Neptune in air signs.    Since February, 2009, transiting Pluto has been moving in and out of opposition to my natal Uranus – one of the quintessential air planets in any chart – in my 7th (air) house.  In November, 2009, transiting Saturn began squaring my natal Uranus, off and on, from the early degrees of Libra.  In July, 2010, transiting Jupiter began squaring my natal Uranus from the opposite end in Aries, soon to be replaced by transiting Uranus in May, 2011, thus completing my personal version of the infamous cardinal grand cross – and more to the point in relation to this article, greatly increasing the level of air blowing through my chart.

On May 8, 2009 (shortly after the beginning of my Pluto transit to Uranus, as a full Moon was completing a grand cardinal cross to this transit), all this air came into powerful astropoetic focus when an unprecedented inland hurricane or derechio blew through my neighborhood [1].  In less than 20 minutes, 70-90 MPH winds had knocked down hundreds of large trees within the 1000-acre land cooperative where I live.  It took 20 of us 2 days to chain saw our way out to the nearest paved road 2 miles away; we were without electricity for the next week, and without landline phones for the next 3 weeks.  It is perhaps superfluous to say, but I had never witnessed anything like this storm, and I was completely “blown away.”

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, I became “scattered” and “disoriented” as my previous life was thrown “up in the air” and my familiar routines were replaced by the necessity for cleaning up the debris. With trees “blown down” everywhere around me, the storm made me feel claustrophobic, and I felt a psychic need to clear some “space” so that I could “breathe” again.

This lack of “room to breathe” was not unfamiliar to me.  All my life I had been working to create a life of autonomy, freedom from unnecessary restraint, and “space” to live as I pleased with as little compromise as possible.  Through a long and winding road, this quest had led me to this quiet little writer’s retreat off the  beaten path, where the air is clean, and I have plenty of room – both physically and mentally to stretch out and hear myself think.  But now, in the wake of this storm, I once again felt myself to be “fighting for my breath.”

This familiar fight began at age 3, when I was playing king of the mountain on a pile of ashes in my grandfather’s backyard.  Somehow I had managed to make it to the top of the pile (I also have a lot of fire in my chart), but then literally stopped breathing when the older kids in the neighborhood ganged up on me and stuffed ashes in my mouth.  I nearly choked to death, contracted pneumonia, and in the days ahead struggled to learn how to breathe more easily in a world I often felt was filled with danger. In my natal chart, I have Saturn/Mars in Virgo (mutable earth = ashes) square air planet Mercury.  At the time of the incident, transiting Jupiter in air sign Gemini was triggering this natal square.

In the days after the storm, what had previously been a quiet little backwoods retreat where I could easily focus on my work, suddenly became filled with the constant “buzzing” of chain saws.  As my neighbors and I worked to salvage the marketable timber that had fallen, the relentless activity added to my sense of claustrophobia, and became an ongoing distraction to the book I was writing. 

In addition, the necessity for dealing with the acreage we held in common as a land cooperative, required a great “airing” of views, and in the end, served to underscore our differences.  I spent the next 6 months “airing my grievances,” and in the process, became increasingly isolated and alienated from my neighbors.  The whole process came to a head at our annual meeting in October, 2009, when I experienced a symbolic re-enactment of the ash pile incident.  I tried to speak my truth, but was shut down by hostile resistance from my neighbors (Uranus rules the 3rd (air) house of neighbors in my chart), who collectively managed to momentarily knock “the wind out of my sails.”

By the time transiting Pluto completed its first partile opposition to my natal Uranus in January, 2010, I was beginning to feel increasingly “restless” and alienated from other land cooperative members, who seemed unwilling to hear what I had to say.  I felt as though I had lost my “voice” (air moving across the vocal cords) and had become “invisible” (a metaphor for the transparency of air).

When transiting Pluto was again within a degree of partile opposition to my natal Uranus, in June, 2010, I had a dream in which I was led to a desert somewhere to my south, where I was being taught to read a fragile sandstone oracle in which images appeared when “the wind” blew across its face.  In contemplating this dream, it has become clear to me that it was time, or would soon be time, to leave this place for a drier climate (one that is more sparsely populated, a bit farther off the beaten path, where I can once have space to think, and feel, and write with less distraction). 

As of this moment, I do not know where this “fresh breeze” will take me, but I feel excited about the possibility of “airing out” my life, and feeling the “winds of change” blow through it.  Thinking about this brings a “sigh of relief.”  Who knows but that one day in the foreseeable future, I may “catch the wind,” vanish in “thin air” and re-emerge elsewhere “free as a bird”.  At the very least, the astropoetic possibilities that have emerged during this time of intensified air, seem to be moving me in that direction, and “leaning into the wind”, I am “inspired” to “set my sails” for new horizons and more “breezy” climes.

In writing this section of my article I have belabored these airy metaphors to make my point.  In real life, this conclusion has evolved slowly over the course of 15 months, and is still very much “in mid flight”.  Taking an astropoetic approach to my current dilemma, however, it has been possible to gradually feel my way into greater understanding by simply observing my sensory and emotional responses to events reflecting the shifting elemental dynamics of my birthchart.  These elemental dynamics are often a matter of two or more elements interacting with each other – a complex topic beyond the scope of this article.  Meanwhile, as I have hopefully been able to demonstrate, sensing and feeling your way into an intuitive relationship with the elements is a good first step toward letting your chart breathe with fresh astropoetic insight.

1. Snider, Dave. “May 8, 2009 Derecho and Tornado Event,” KY3, May 27, 2009. Retrieved August 11, 2010.

 

Inspired to take an elemental journey into your birthchart?  Comment on any of the posts in this series and I'll look forward to exchanging astropoetic thoughts with you....

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

 

 

An Astropoetic Approach to the Elements. 3 Emotional Correlates

 

This post is the third in 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.

As with our senses, our emotions often yield an immediate understanding of something, even when we can’t articulate exactly what it is we feel.  In the previous post, I described an astropoetic approach to the elements through the senses.  A second dimension of this approach to the elements can be found in their emotional tone.  When we correlate our emotions with their astrological referents, we have an intuitive language to better understand both our feelings and the chart that reflects their expression.  Nowhere is this easier to do than with the elements, each with its own distinct nexus of emotions.

As with the sensory dimension of the elements, their emotional dimension also has historical precedence. The concept of the four elements – introduced by Empedocles and further developed by Aristotle and others – gradually evolved to encompass a much broader medical and psychological profile.  Circa 460 BCE, the concept was adopted by Hippocrates, and discussed in terms of the four humors: sanguine, melancholic, choleric, and phlegmatic.

An Astropoetic Approach to the Elements. 2 Through the Senses

 

This post is the second in 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.

The sensory nature of the elements was recognized as early as the 6^th century BCE, beginning with the work of Empedocles, who ascribed the well-known dimensions of hot and cold, and wet and dry to the elements. According to this early scheme, fire is considered to be hot and dry; air is hot and moist (wet); water is cold and wet; and earth is cold and dry. On the basis of these simple designations, it becomes possible to develop a rudimentary astropoetic understanding of the elements built on intuitive associations.

An Astropoetic Approach to the Elements: Introduction

 

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.

Sun and Moon: an astropoetic understanding of your soul's focus in this life

Greetings from The Astropoetic School of Soul Discovery located in the heart of the galaxy on Milky Way Farm here in the beautiful Ozarks - where the winds of tornado alley meet the slow-moving pinwheel of the heavens.

The good news about the wild weather this year is that I've been able to get a lot of desk work done, including most recently a revision of Lesson 15 of my correspondence course, in which I discuss the relationship between the Sun and the Moon - essential to an understanding of the soul's evolutionary focus in this life.  In this lesson, I talk about the way lunar phases and aspects between Sun and Moon reinforce each other.  

In keeping with the spirit of this course, I do this in a way that not only conveys information, but also illustrates my points with reference to images, poetry, excerpts from literature and film, politics, science, and other art forms.

To illustrate the differences between a New Moon soul marked by a separating conjunction between Sun and Moon and a Balsamic Moon soul marked by an applying conjunction, for example, I discuss the relationship between Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando - with Sun and Moon in Aries) and Captain Willard (played by Martin Sheen - with Sun and Moon in Leo) in the 1979 Vietnam war movie Apocalypse Now.  

To make other distinctions, I compare US Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, rock icons Tina Turner and Grace Slick, organic architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Antoni Gaudi, scientists Rachel Carson and Temple Grandin, romantic poets William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley, and film directors Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam.  

The lives and works of these people provide powerful astro-poetic images of phase and aspect relationships between Sun and Moon.

In the homework, as always, I invite my students to make similar distinctions in their own lives.

Says one student about this process:   

Now into the third year of your course, I'm astonished at the richness and depth of the poetic language of astrology I've been introduced to. It's like learning Italian and having unique access to a new and vibrant culture. In this case, it's the history and culture of my own life that has become an intriguing terrain to explore and develop.  I can't imagine a more perceptive, inspiring and challenging guide. And I doubt that there is a more personalized and self-empowering way to study astrology out there.  Thank you for turning those strange symbols and my own birth signature into a creative art form. 

I do try to inspire and challenge my students, as well as myself, reaching more deeply into the symbolism with great attention to nuance.  But don't worry, three years ago, this student knew absolutely nothing about astrology.  The course is designed to guide novices like her step by step into the deep end of the pool.  

For those of you with some astrology already under your belt, advanced placement is possible.  Even from the beginning, this course will introduce you to concepts that - as far as I know - are explored nowhere else.

Together my students and I are reinventing astrology to be more intimately personal, more image-based, and more intuitive.  You can be part of this grand experiment.  To sign up, go here.

This post recently appeared in the Astropoetic School newsletter sent out three times a year.  If you're interested in receiving that, please Email  with subject line 'Subscribe to School Newsletter'. To subscribe to this blog, see the sign up boxes on the website.

Astrological Consultations with Joe Landwehr

 

Although my focus these past 18 years has been on writing my books, and teaching students to use the language of astrology as a guide to self-reflection, I have recently been called upon to do more "readings" for those undergoing crisis and/or transition in their lives.  I feel my job here is to give consent to what comes my way, and to make myself available to anyone in need.

If you have an issue that you would like to discuss with me, I am now available for private consultations.  I am not interested in doing general readings to satisfy curiosity about astrology or about life, and I do not predict the future.  But I do believe that astrology can be helpful for approaching life's challenges with greater awareness, and I am willing to guide you in this use of it.

My particular approach combines professional training in psychological counseling with 40-years of experience working with astrology.  I also reference the chakra system in my work (see my book Tracking the Soul With an Astrology of Consciousness for an overview of this approach), as it allows for greater depth of nuance in approaching astrological symbolism. It also provides an opening to a more proactive and intentional embodiment of astrological energies, and goes far beyond merely descriptive astrology in empowering you to live your life more consciously.

In addition, I have trained in medical astrology, and am available to help those suffering with chronic illness to better understand the psychosomatic components of their health issues, and the opportunities for soul growth that they may provide.

Fees

For first time clients, I charge on a sliding scale from $150-$250 for a 90-minute session.  Subsequent sessions are $100-$200. I can work by phone or by Skype (Skype preferred).  I record each session on a CD, which I send you, along with my preparatory notes when we are done.

Note: If you are considering studying at The Astropoetic School, you might find a consultation to be a valuable way of experiencing my approach.

Let me know if I can help.  Joe  (Email me here to set up an appointment.)

Into the Realm of the Gods Where Astrology is Rooted

In this series of posts, I have followed the trail of astrological symbols from known  to unknown, from a difficult natal aspect to a more instinctual realm where animal totems become the guides for approaching a difficult aspect in way that honors natural law.  Natural law itself evolves out of a deeper awareness of the sacred nature of all life, and it is in this awareness that an astropoetic approach to astrology is rooted.

What this means in practice is that any difficult aspect in a natal birthchart, and indeed the entire birthchart itself, can be understood as an elaborate invitation to become more god-like in our way of being – to follow in the footsteps of a god or goddess, and in modeling ourselves after divinity to become an embodiment of the sacred.  From this perspective, everything within a birthchart that we find difficult is merely the catalyst to a process of growth in consciousness, which we are free to heed or not, but which we ultimately ignore at our peril and ultimately the peril of the planet.  When we take the call to consciousness seriously, then we gravitate into the realm of the gods, where our merely human lives serve the well-being of the Whole.

Animal Symbiosis as a Model for Approaching Difficult Astrological Aspects

In this series of posts so far, I have been exploring the use of astrological symbolism as a point of departure for a much deeper journey into the unconscious realms.  In the previous post, I discussed how animal totems can be potent guides to this journey, using my own association of Mars with the wolf as illustration of this possibility.  The wolf, who came to me in a dream during a transit of Mars to my natal Mercury-Mars square, has become a guide to understanding and becoming more conscious in relation to this difficult aspect in my chart.  In this post, I want to continue this story more deeply into the lair of the wolf to see what else it has to teach us.

Astrology, Dreams and Animal Totems

In the first two posts in this series, I have been exploring the premise that interpretation of the symbolism of a birthchart from the traditional standpoint is really only the point of departure for an astropoetic exploration that goes much deeper than that.  The exploration begins by identifying sensory and emotional correlates to the experience of a given transit to the natal chart – in this case, a natal Mercury-Mars square being triggered by transiting Mars conjunct natal Mercury and square natal Mars.  It then extends to the identification of a pattern, which can be tracked through a cyclical history of similar transits.  The pattern, however, is only the conscious portal to a deeper underground pool of meaning and resonance. 

In this post, we will wade into this pool to see what else we can discover.
 

Moving Beyond Pattern Recognition
to Explore the Unconscious Dimensions of Soul Space

Quoting again from the original presentation of this material in my book, The Seven Gates of Soul: Reclaiming the Poetry of Everyday Life (pp 364-366):

Cyclical History in Astropoetic Exploration

 

Could a car accident be an opening to soul?

In my last post in this series, I discussed the limitations of interpretation as a platform for a soulful use of astrology.  To illustrate these limitations, I chose an example from my own life – a car accident that occurred during a transit of Mars conjunct my natal Mercury – taken from my book, The Seven Gates of Soul. 

After quickly exhausting the capacity of traditional astrology to shed light on this incident, I reviewed the sensory and emotional dimensions of both Mercury and Mars as I experienced them in the car accident, and suggested that my vulnerability and anger were potentially an opening to soul, were I in fact, willing to go through the opening. 

In this post, I want to demonstrate how it is possible to do that.