In primitive societies, everything was centered around human being and everything was sacred, him, life, Nature…
In our modern Western societies, everything is political and nothing is sacred anymore.
Everything is for sale, everything is derision and glitter, the real meaning of things is lost, sacredness is often relegated to the background or outright denied…
But behind the glitz, politics, Law and the famous “secularism”, everything is still religious and will remain so, even if not everyone is necessarily aware of it.
The Spirit is the radiance of the relationships that unite all that exists. Everything is meaningful as long as one knows how to look around and recognize things.
Finding meaning in life is probably the most complicated task that has occupied the human being mind since time immemorial; philosophers, astrologers, and mystics worldwide have pondered it deeply, and more recently our contemporary psychologists have taken up the challenge to (re)explain to us in modern terms old realities… which are actually very simple : human being souls go either toward “gold” or toward “God.”
In short:
What does God want us to understand, discover, accomplish ? What does my birth chart mean ? Why this Square, this Trine, and these Aspects ? Why did I experience these events during these Transits ?
Asking questions means being in search of meaning. And being in search of meaning already means partly having found it…
Stoicism and Logic
“God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.” Serenity Prayer
This prayer, often recited, is a marvel of wisdom in the face of life. It revolves around 3 pillars:
- cultivating the wisdom necessary to have a correct view of things,
- recognizing and accepting a part of powerlessness against the vast waves of life forces that inevitably toss us about,
- and above all, finding the strength for change and the freedom of choice that break determinism and thus allow us to truly become masters of our destiny by providing the necessary impulse for sublimation and transcendence on the path of Individuation.
Blaise Pascal attempted to convince through logic the usefulness of faith in God in his “Pensées”:
“You have two things to lose : truth and good, and two things to stake : your reason and your will, your knowledge and your bliss; and your nature has two things to avoid : error and misery.
Your reason is no more harmed in choosing one than the other, since a choice must necessarily be made. This point is clear. But your bliss ?
Let us weigh the gain and the loss, assuming that God exists.
Consider these two cases : if you win, you win all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
Bet, then, that He is, without hesitation.” Pascal’s Wager
It’s unfortunate that one must resort to logic and rationality to express what should primarily be an intuitive, individual, and deep feeling, but it must be acknowledged that there is strong argumentation in “Pascal’s Wager” for the necessity of believing in God’s existence (see The Myth of Sisyphus or the Death of God), just as there is in the Serenity Prayer a stoic vision and a notion of providence leading to this wisdom…
From Caterpillar to Butterfly…
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
Richard Bach
In the in-depth article on “Depression and Astrology,” I discuss in chapters the crucial importance of giving meaning to things, of finding their significance, of being in a logic of “transcendent faith”…
This applies in the context of depressive processes, but this mindset is inherent to human beings as a full psychological process, intervening in every facet of their existence.
One can say that human being, consciously or unconsciously, is in a permanent existential crisis, in an unceasing metaphysical questioning (see Astrology and Metaphysics and Karma in Astrology).
One of the most striking and interesting points of divergence between Jung and Freud (at least to me) is their approaches to religious and by extension metaphysical thoughts.
Freud saw them simply as sublimations of sexual impulses, whereas Jung considered them not as sublimation or transformation, but as a primordial instinct of human being nature, on the same level as biological instincts…
Jung added:
“Fortunately, in its kindness and patience, Nature has never pushed most people to question the meaning of their life. And when there is no question, there is no need for an answer.”
Psychiatrist Fritz Künkel emphasized the importance of the experience of God through the interaction of human being relationships in the process of Individuation : He who finds himself, finds God; the creator acts through individuals, the individual who fulfills himself accomplishes the work of God…
Often this spiritual awakening is not truly chosen but “imposes itself” on the individual as a necessary process (the inevitability of evolution).
Schematically, we can distinguish 3 phases related to spiritual awakening, drawing an analogy with the caterpillar and the butterfly :
- In phase 1, “the caterpillar individual”, he is at the primary stage before spiritual awakening, rather primitive and rustic (which does not mean unintelligent), often very “down to earth”, logical and rationalist (marked Earth and Air energies), he consciously or unconsciously feels that “something escapes him” but doesn’t know what; he senses the existence of unknown universes but his inertia still holds him back, he intellectualizes and rationalizes everything, closes himself to his own intuitions, and clashes with anything that challenges his entrenched certainties.
Breaking this phase happens in two ways : either cataclysmically with a sudden change, or through a progressive evolutionary process (introspection, Depression, etc). - In phase 2, “the chrysalis individual”, awakening is underway, a crisis has already started, there may have been a mystical metaphysical experience (Jupiter), a feeling of universality, or meditation leading to an altered state of consciousness…
The personality has been shaken at its foundation and may be overwhelmed if the ego is too fragile (Saturn).
Spiritual experiences require a strengthened ego to be lived under the best conditions, without risk.
Identification with God (Neptune), intuitive visions, need for freedom and impulsivity (Uranus), feeling of omnipotence (Pluto), hallucinations or other Kundalini awakening phenomena (sensations of electricity, etc.), synchronicity phenomena…
All these states, as magical and overwhelming as they are, are only temporary.
After this instability, the descent begins, where integration of the raised values starts.
It’s a slow cyclical process that takes time, often a lot of time; the psychic influx is inevitably followed by reflux. In unprepared and uninformed people who don’t understand what is happening, mystical experiences can cause havoc, often leading to Depression or even madness. The collapsed ego will have to find deeper, more solid bases to restructure itself.
This chrysalis stage is a hybrid phase corresponding to a form of symbolic death; the caterpillar dies definitively to be reborn from its ashes, but the process is generally not without suffering. - In phase 3, “the butterfly individual”, the individual must take stock of the awakening crisis and restructure, what changes did he retain ? How to integrate them into daily life ?
Existence remains fundamentally what it is, with the same material and human being problems; only part of the person’s perception has evolved, the individual has glimpsed another possible reality.
Many things have changed within the individual, the personality has been overturned; they must manage this new psychological reality and, despite everything, return to a more concrete everyday life, to their simple environment which has not changed…
It’s necessary to balance these new psychic materials, not reject the Shadow even though it will obviously be much more contrasted than before, but above all use this new light received to create positive things.
A new life begins, the field of possibilities is approached with a new look and more freedom. The return to this simple humanity is the real test of faith… but if successful, the butterfly can take flight.
This is not a race, these stages are not timed, there is no imperative to finish the butterfly stage as quickly as possible, nor is there a problem in taking the time to find one’s own foundations at the caterpillar stage.
The stages are not reversible, a butterfly will never be a caterpillar in the same way again; it may experience successive awakening phases, but they will never be identical (see article Individuation, the spiral process).
Astrological Indicators
One should not seek to too strictly fit these phases with particular astrological indicators, everyone has their own way of functioning, therefore their own indicators, but social and transpersonal planets will obviously be heavily involved, as will the Lunar Nodes and the Black moon.
However, some generalities may be useful to readers:
- Fire signs are naturally believers but rebellious, which sometimes makes them fierce atheists or pagans (like it or not, atheism is a belief… often indicated by afflicted Mars, Jupiter or Uranus !). Sagittarius is probably the most mystical, most drawn to metaphysics, as is the 9th House and Jupiter attached to it. Leo is more into piety, love, and the power of the heart, like its symbol the Sun and the 5th House.
- Air signs tend to be skeptical and want to analyze everything, seeking logic even in the irrational. Libra loves spirituality for its liveliness of mind. For Aquarius, it will be idealism and a thirst for humanity that push them into religion, their planet Uranus may sharpen the esoteric and occult side of their personality.
- Water signs are the most gullible, easily slipping into belief up to fanaticism, and are sometimes very superstitious with great sensitivity (and great intuition). Pisces, Neptune, and the 12th House are in sacrifice, selflessness, magnanimity, mysticism, and the absolute (sometimes mediumship). Scorpio and the 8th House lean more toward occultism and veneration.
- Earth signs are by far the most rationalists, “feet on the ground”, believing what they see and can touch… But once convinced, they become the fiercest believers! Capricorn will love the morality, rigor, and structure of religion, even tending to become a hermit. Its ruler Saturn is a planet whose facet also includes mystical experience, too often forgotten. A face of Venus and Taurus may lean toward a form of spirituality linked to “Love”.
However, beyond these few generalities giving indications for the analysis of each birth chart, I advise everyone to be cautious on the path of Self-discovery, as too many metaphysical questions do not necessarily help (see Astrology and Metaphysics).
The difference between skepticism, gullibility, and mysticism is as thin as a sheet of paper; as the Buddha advised with his words, in spiritual matters as elsewhere, everything must be weighed, analyzed, and tested like a goldsmith with his gold !
I end with a long quote from the book “Astrological Triptych” by Dane Rudhyar to meditate on the nature of the Spirit:
“When I speak of the Spirit, I speak of the active emanation of ‘That’ which is wholeness, harmony, absolute balance. The Spirit is the power that always seeks to restore harmony and functional balance wherever they are disturbed. This power operates anywhere, and on any form of integrated existence, that is, everywhere.
The Spirit is also what constantly seeks to fill a void, in order to constantly bring closer and integrate, into an appropriate structure, the poles of being that have drifted too far apart.
At its deepest and essential aspect, the Spirit is the answer to all human being needs. It flows toward every human being, people who needs it, just as electricity instantly moves from the highest potential to the lowest, just as the wind rushes from a high-pressure zone to a low-pressure zone, just as waters seek to balance their levels.
Thus human being always experiences the Spirit at the moment he needs it most. It’s toward it that he must turn when soul and heart, though crushed by the torments of nothingness and the crucifixion of despair, have refused to accept defeat and have remained confident, active, and alert amid the deepest agony, for the Spirit cannot reach one who does not believe in the possibility of its coming. Only faith can offer a vacancy of personality to the flow emanating from absolute Fullness, this Fullness which human being, with his limited vision, incapable of grasping its infinity, hides under the multiple names of God.
Faith resembles a conscious act of breathing. Why breathe ? Why this effort to expand the chest and open the lungs to something unseen ? […]
The Spirit is there too, but without acts of faith and deep psychic inhalations, there can be no spiritual life in integrity, interiority, and truth. […]
Living in faith means living in the fullness of harmony. It’s to pour around oneself the inner wealth of one’s being, while gratefully receiving divine abundance, the vivifying Spirit; thus the inner current and the outer activity are balanced.
God reaches the heart of human being when the latter human manages to fill the place and function assigned by destiny.
Then there can be neither exhaustion, nor illness, nor lack of energy, nor congestion. The powerful movement of universal life operates in harmonious force, beauty, and creativity, in and through individualized consciousness.
Every moment, every gesture is accomplished in peace and human being forever believes in immortality which encompasses increasingly vast planes of being, from accomplishment to accomplishment, from eternity to eternity.”
He who seeks God, more or less consciously, always ends up finding Him, believe it, it’s the destiny of all men…