As human beings, we long to know who we are – not just in human terms, but as souls in relation to the grand, seemingly intelligent design that permeates this vast, unfathomable universe. I call this desire the astropoetic impulse, and propose that a useful language with which we might explore our relation to the grand design and our most deeply connected sense of self be called astropoetics.

The Origin of the Word “Astropoetics”

The first half of this word, astro-, is meant to suggest that the soul can be observed with uncanny clarity in relation to its movement through various cycles, which wax and wane in predictable rhythm, and are mirrored in the movement of the larger cosmic patterns that routinely coalesce and disperse in the sky. Since the tracking of these cosmic patterns and their relevance to the soul is the province of astrology, it seems natural to suggest that a potential language of soul could find a spiritual approach to astrology to be a useful point of departure. Despite astrology’s shortcomings and the low esteem in which it is often held, no other discipline speaks quite as eloquently or with as much sophistication to the astropoetic desire, nor provides quite so useful a template for an exploration of the relationship between the grand design and the life of an individual human soul.

The second half of my word for this language, -poetics, is meant to suggest that the ineffable mystery of soul can best be approached through a language that is poetic in its use of words. A poetic language is one that conducts its quest for the truth obliquely – through simile and metaphor, image and symbol, suggestion and allusion, rather than direct, dogmatic statement of fact. When astrology is approached poetically – as a right brain contemplation of imagery and symbolism, rather than as an interpretative system based on authoritative prepackaged definitions – it can potentially serve as the basis for a potent language of soul that allows for the possibility of deep and penetrating self-discovery.

The Difference Between Astropoetics and Astrology

Astropoetics differs from astrology in several additional ways. While traditional astrology understands the birthchart to be a signature of fate, an astropoetic approach to astrology understands fate to be but an elaborate opportunity for evolution of consciousness within the embodied state. This opportunity is a learning process that transcends traditional astrological judgments about good and bad placements, benefic and malefic signatures, and the relative ease or difficulty of birthcharts considered in their entirety. Astropoetics assumes that each chart is an expression of Creative Intelligence at work, delineating the optimum path to conscious embodiment for the soul to which it belongs. Astropoetics further assumes that what becomes of the potential for good or ill that is harbored within the symbolism of any birthchart depends entirely upon the individual soul, whose consciousness is channeled through the chart.

While traditional astrology is largely a matter of rationally decoding signs that have become shorthand notation for known qualities, astropoetics is oriented more toward the discovery of unknown sensory, emotional, psychological, mythological and spiritual correlates to symbols, and of the images that embody these correlates. The process is by nature an intimate journey into unfamiliar territory, and the outcome is not something that can be predetermined according to standardized definitions for astrological symbols. Traditional astrology aims at an objective understanding of the symbolism. Astropoetics assumes that the symbolism must be referenced to both an astrological context (the birthchart considered as a whole) and a subjective life context that is unique to the individual soul, before it can mean anything at all.

To the extent that traditional astrology strives to be scientific, it will adopt science’s insistence on causal explanations for its interpretations, even if the language that it uses emphasizes individual choice. Astrologers that are sensitive to this issue might say as Paracelsus did, for example, that “the stars incline; they do not compel.” Actually the stars do nothing but provide an endlessly intriguing mirror to the idiosyncratic organization of soul space. Instead of attempting to articulate the causal relationship between heaven and earth, however euphemistically it might be phrased, astropoetics assumes instead that everything astrological is a reflection of an interconnected web of resonant relationships, which reflect back to the individual soul who it is and where it belongs within the grand design of the Greater Whole of which it is part. These relationships are not causal in nature, but expressions of natural metaphorical logic. Our lives are reflected by our birthcharts, not because the arrangement of planets in the sky at the time of our birth causes us to be who we are, but because it reflects a larger pattern in which we participate and with which we share a natural affinity.

The entire web of relationships encompassed by this pattern is suggested astrologically by the interconnected nature of the birthchart, which mirrors the coherent internal logic of subjective soul space. Each resonant relationship within the pattern evolves cyclically through soul time, as it is reflected astrologically in the various cycles of planets that are connected by aspect in soul space. While traditional astrology tends to understand the birthchart as a static description of personality undergoing a series of discrete events, astropoetics views it instead as descriptive of a process that deepens and transmutes in cyclical time as increasing awareness is brought to the experience of embodiment it describes.

Lastly, while traditional astrology – at least that which is psychologically oriented – strives toward an understanding of the human predicament and an alleviation of suffering through a more enlightened perspective, astropoetics aims a bit higher. Astropoetics strives toward an understanding of how the human predicament is thoroughly infused by the presence of Spirit. This is true, especially where the human predicament is most difficult, most painful, most intensely vulnerable, and where the seemingly intractable core issues that mark the embodied life are encountered. Without attempting to romanticize or otherwise dismiss the suffering inherent in such experiences, astropoetics aims toward a vision broad and deep enough to encompass them as the portals to a deeper, more conscious and more creative embodiment of Spirit that they ultimately are. Taken to its highest potential, astropoetics not only describes the web of relationships that together comprise the soul space in which we live. It also shows us how to live – how and when to apply our creative intelligence in order to play a more conscious part in the evolution of collective soul space, as we take our place within the grand design, so that together we might open a larger portal through which Spirit can reveal itself in the embodied world that we share.