Some time ago, I described the “security and freedom” duality, which forms a powerful driving psychological basis and which recurs quite often in the psyche of modern man, this “matter and mind” duality is a form of cousin duality to this one, except that it brings different nuances.
It’s first important to understand how matter and mind can crystallize in different ways in a birth chart or in “forecasted actualizations”, before addressing their possible interactions.
Often “matter” is declined here through important bases related to the elemental energies of Earth (Taurus / 2nd House, Virgo / 6th House, Capricorn / 10th House) : security, stabilization, perpetuation, structuring, comfort, recognition.
It can be linked to everything in the lower half of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that relates most directly to primary and physiological needs : breathing, drinking, eating, sleeping, breeding, securing our environment, our clan, our loved ones (having a roof over our head, being protected from the weather and predators).
These are the concrete elements that link us to the most primitive and basic nature of existence (“first degree”), to our incarnation, also in all that the body can have of weight, heaviness, problems, faults : illnesses, deficiencies, old age and death.
Matter is finally to be directly linked to the different forms of attachment, of needs, everything that can be assimilated to a “vital necessity to be filled”, and to the different “thirsts” that we can create for ourselves, which pushes us in the end to have a prehension on the outside world : the lack of air pushes us to seek our breath, the hunger to go hunting, the thirst to drink, the reproduction to seduce, etc.
In contrast, “the mind” represents the entire top of Maslow’s hierarchy, everything that has to do with social ties, clan, love, self-worth within the collective, recognition of others, investment in the community (awareness of the importance of the “collective being”, collective consciousness) and ultimately even the highest spiritual illuminations, awareness of universality…
We attach more these energies to the various transpersonal forces (Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto) which have by nature as functions to produce, revelations, awareness, increase of the emotional receptivity, mystical and metaphysical understandings, and in the end spiritualization of the life, the world, the matter !
Moreover, it should be noted that certain signs, like Sagittarius, by their intrinsic nature, directly materialize in them this duality between the animal (material) and spiritual (aspiring to elevation) parts, it’s part of their archetypal scheme.
Of course, it’s easy to guess how these forces can be played out in some people who can sometimes have contradictory actualizations of these energies in their own birth chart !
A part of the personality can be attached to the expression of the primary and safe vision of life while the other will aspire to break its chains; or conversely a part of the personality will easily express high psychic aspirations but will also have difficulty to concretize this in the matter, to face the realities, and it will even be able to consider at the end the physical body as a dead weight preventing the elevation…
Often, this will tend to divide life into two halves : a first period will be in charge of discovering and exploring, exploiting, one of the two domains, then according to a sudden awareness, or sometimes also -often- external events of a rather traumatic nature, there will be the need to switch to the opposite polarity, to better understand the synthesis that can take place between these forces…
On the other hand, mind and matter can have very important parts of crystallization, these are energies which, once installed and constellated in the personality, will have difficulty in the end to evolve, this is also why they often need a mechanism in explosive “combustion engine” to advance, they will need to be confronted with losses, renunciations, bereavements (real or symbolic), they directly require working on the whole meaning of values, redefining different prioritizations, reconciling ideals with the constraints of reality, which is only likely to operate in a context of major existential crises, questioning, or even with phases of Depression.
According to the different archetypes that will be dominant in the birth chart and within this “matter and mind” duality, we will find different “necessary renunciations” by signs and planetary influences, and we must not be mistaken, as I already mentioned in my recent article on the “Via Negativa”, knowing what we must be able to renounce can be an extraordinarily important and powerful evolutionary and realization engine !
• The Aries / Mars dominant will probably have to give up anger and impatience, impulsiveness, will have to integrate more directly the fact of working with time, and being able to listen to their emotions. |
• The Venusian Taurus dominant will be fully impacted by this duality and will have to be able to accept notions of impermanence, detachment, but also a questioning in relation to their environment, their community, and the bonds of belonging that they want to see really last and strengthen. |
• The Mercurian Gemini dominant will have to know how to question their lightness and probably accept a dose of gravity and seriousness, if they want to be able to best translate their own energies in this separation. |
• The Cancer / Moon dominant will have to renounce resentment and emotional dependencies, and open to the forces of forgiveness and oblivion, which will allow them to redefine their sensibility. |
• The Leo / Sun dominant should be able to renounce the will to power and domination, accept and recognize the freedom and independence of each, the logic of sharing. |
• The Mercurian Virgo dominant will have to give up trying to master and control everything, accept doses of imperfection, and even why not succeed in claiming them, in loving them. |
• The Venusian Libra dominant may also experience a crisis of value and meaning, and will have to fully recognize the changing, unstable social aspect and know how to renounce union if necessary, knowing how to better judge the people they want to surround themselves with. |
• The Scorpio / Pluto dominant will have to renounce all shares of domination, direct and indirect, and accept energies of humility, simplicity, love… |
• The Sagittarius / Jupiter dominant must renounce the propensity for excesses, for abstraction forces, and be able to form the coherent synthesis of their bestial animal parts and their ideals. |
• The Capricorn / Saturn dominant will have to know how to let go and give up their armor, their efficiency for the benefit of their intuitions and feelings, of an opening on the confidence in the other… |
• The Aquarius / Uranus dominant will have to be able to give up their intellectualization forces, their quick intuitive shortcuts, in order to finally settle down and face the physical constraints. |
• The Pisces / Neptune dominant will have to be able to renounce to see everything under the receptive emotional prism, to renounce to withdraw and to flee in front of the obstacle, and to learn how to contact the polarities making it possible to translate their personal qualities into reality, in an effective way. |
These are a few brief examples, but each archetype has its own work of renunciation to operate, we see that some are necessarily by nature more easily polarized on the “matter” side or “mind” side, which tends to unbalance them in this duality and to make them naturally prefer one side rather than another, at least a priori…
But in the absolute, there is no perfect balance there, the real balance to make is established above all according to our own personal natal polarities : we must develop and cultivate the energies which are necessary to us to complete us on our own path of fundamental karmic realization…
