One scary delight of being an astrologer is the opportunity offered to see one’s own transits and progressions shaping up. Opportunities for second guessing the Universe’s intentions are ever present. This can get tiring…
I clearly recall a day in November 1998, the day I realised, as opposed to having merely noted, that Neptune would enter Aquarius at the end of the month – thereby commencing a long series of oppositions to my five twelfth house Leo planets (or six by equal house, take your pick…) which would not complete until Neptune entered Pisces in 2011/2012.
I reacted by doing what I suspect many enlightened people do when offered useful warning of serious upcoming challenges: yelled ‘waaah!!’ to myself, pulled a metaphorical duvet over my head (so far, so Neptunian…) and carried on regardless.
It took from 2001-2008 to recover from the prolonged family crisis and energy burnout which followed. I did not return to work until 2012. However, all clouds do indeed have their silver lining: I wrote two books whilst lying on the sofa with the laptop, caught up on 30 years’reading, and got onto the web in 2008 via my first blog “Writing from the Twelfth House”. I also learned something absolutely essential for persons with an overload of Leo: the world – somehow– could manage to cope wonderfully well in my absence.
This year 2018 finds me once again in an especially interesting, possibly scary place: progressed ruling planet Mercury at 21 Scorpio, having stationed on natal third house Jupiter at 20 Scorpio, turned retrograde at the end of January. For the rest of my life. It’s proving an interesting Jupiter Return – not yet completed…
I’ve been trying to approach the whole issue rather more intelligently this time than I did when Neptune was sending a mini tidal wave my way. One of the things which has arisen is an inclination to delve back into that third house Jupiter in Scorpio territory which has been the core landscape of my whole life since very early childhood.
The mystery of where we came from, where we go when we leave this world, and what the Big Picture may be, has always preoccupied me to a far greater degree than the majority of more sensible people, most of whom prefer to dwell on more concrete and less threatening matters. Grappling with that mystery led me eventually to astrology.
On a recent visit to London, whilst visiting the iconic Watkins bookshop, I chanced upon a deeply thought-provoking book re-appraising that vast territory, the Super Natural (as they title it), by writer Whitley Strieber and professor of religion Jeffrey J. Kripal from which the following quote is taken:
“…The more deeply we plumb the psyche, the deeper the well appears to go. Somewhere down in there, it would appear that there is a place where the line between the physical and nonphysical blurs, where imagination and reality somehow converge, and events unfold that are not yet understood at all. It is the realm of Jeff’s ‘imaginal’, where the electrons of thoughts somehow converge into the molecules of things. But how? The mind knows, but not, perhaps, in ways that it can articulate…(i)…”
It struck me immediately on reading this passage that six thousand year old astrology is the language which has always been available to us for both exploring and articulating the imaginal realm as well as the realm of the practical and the everyday.
I am most grateful, however, to the insights which have arisen from what little I understand of quantum physics. As mentioned in my recent Progressions article in the UK’s Astrological Journal, modern science has demonstrated that we live, move and have our being as part of a vast energy field which dances between order and chaos, in invisible patterns which would appear to hold 4 % matter, 23 % dark matter, and 73 % dark energy together in a vast cosmic web.
With Mercury by progression stationed retrograde on third house Jupiter in Scorpio, I can feel my mind being drawn back into re-reading and re-evaluating my relationship to myth, religion, symbolism, contemporary science, the Super Natural as termed by Streiber and Kripal, Jungian psychology and of course astrology.
I am grateful to astrological writers and thinkers of the calibre of Bernadette Brady, Armand Diaz, Kieron le Grice, Richard Tarnas, and Phoebe Weiss, to name a few of my own recent favourites, in the help they have provided me in thinking through what I have long seen as complementary lenses: the astrological world view and that of the weirdly paradoxical world revealed by quantum physics.
I want to learn more, in more depth, about the 96% of that vast energy field which science has told us is there – but which the procedures of scientific reductionism, centred on the 4% about which we DO know, seem to be able to tell us very little.
Wish me luck on the journey – enjoy your own Jupiter in Scorpio plumbing expeditions, and feel free to report back…!
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Endnotes:
(i) Quotation from ‘The Super Natural a new version of the unexplained‘ by Whitley Strieber and Jeffrey J. Kripal: P283, from a chapter called Mythmaking (Whitley Strieber)
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This is a slightly edited version of my 15th Not the Astrology Column featured in the November/December 2017 Issue of the UK’s Astrological Journal, edited by Victor Olliver.
900 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2018
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page of Writing from the Twelfth House
Astrology: Questions and Answers 
Thank you always for being so private in your postings – as a very open (minded) person I appreciate this especially when the subtle and shady areas of humans come into play! (Explanatory note: I am Capricorn, AC Scorpio, Jupiter (in Aquarius and 3rd house) square Neptune (in Scorpio and 12th house)- 🙂
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And thank you, Sabine. Your explanatory note certainly tells me why you appreciate privacy!
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30.1.18:
Sal Pelliccia:
Lots of luck (not that you need luck in a quantum universe)! I have not read the Super Natural – heard the authors discuss it around the time it was published – I’d like to read it. Here’s a wonderful interview/discussion with Jeffrey Kripal that you might appreciate.
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Thanks, Sal, that’s great – will have a listen. I do recommend the book. It’s really challenging of so many of our assumptions. And it’s well written!
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30.1.18:
Bob Ruth Hoole:
Having four players in Scorpio 9th I understand. Personally I feel we need to accept mystery here and realise there is a limit to what we can know. But perhaps that’s just me. I also feel that our astrlogical knowledge can blind us to our limits, wanting to know the mind of God, for the want of a better words. Or worse, thinking we do.
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Yes, agreed, Ruth. Astrology can give us a fleeting glimpse into the vastness of eternity, just enough to reveal that there is Meaning at work. But we know how the Greek gods punished hubris! Personally, I find the challenge of trying to deepen my understanding of things irresistible – but I understand that everything is held ultimately in mystery which we as mere humans simply cannot penetrate…
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30.1.18:
Marilena Marino:
Such a lovely piece, Anne – thank you! I can relate to your opening story thanks to my 6 Libra placements and all the Capricorn energy we’ve been enjoying in recent years. I’ve come to accept that the challenges are here to help me grow and evolve. Perhaps I wouldn’t be making certain important choices without them. And I know very well that more are going to be necessary over the next few years. There’s opportunity in everything, if you look for it. You never can tell which guise help comes in as…
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Many thanks, Marilena, for this thoughtful response from a fellow stellium-ite! Perhaps we should set set up a support group… And yes, I’ve certainly discovered through my lifetime that some of my greatest gifts from Life have come in the most difficult possible wrappings…
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hi anne…the very best in this most interesting phase of your life. to me its the heart of the matter. what we truly are. what truly exists. conventionally and ultimately. how they co-exist. WOW! have a realization filled time on the couch! love, janice
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Many thanks, Janice! Road to realisation bumpy and hazy – as usual…!!
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I find myself pondering the implications — if the thin blurry line between The Rational and The Woo is quantum physics as defined by the inelegant tools of scientific reasoning as humanity understands it in the context of 21st century technology (… something Im sure will look like science before the advent of say, Marie Curie and the eventual X ray to future observers as the past does to us) — what then does that mean? What will life look like if everyone knows how to use The Force(a metaphor itself for cribbed Eastern philosophical/mystical knowledge but lets go with it)? Further, if humanity shifts from ego validation to self actualization, how is society as microcosm of species thus changed?
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Well, A M, what is life without blurry lines and endless questions stretching into the imeasurable distance of ultimate Mystery? Rather dreary, I think…
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“… turned retrograde at the end of January. For the rest of my life.” — That ‘ending’ sentence made me laugh! You’re entering this stage with a proactive quest to grasp (remember?) an even-larger picture; with each new discovery, it will be more like, ‘ahhhhh, yes,’ and not’ ‘whaaaa!’
Even Galileo was selective when sharing his hypothesis and findings, as the masses of humans are slow to accept any change in perceptions; normal is good for many, yet some thirst to peer around corners and beneath the surfaces to discover what’s ahead, what’s out of sight – yet affects us, etc.
We’re strapped onto a roller coaster that’s been giving unpredictable turns and surprises; unpredictable if not tuned into your posts, which show that sometimes it’s quite predictable! Yesterday, after the third ‘surprise’ that altered my day, I wondered if every planet was presently retrograde! Of course I thought of you…
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Well, it’s great to be thought about, Lisa! I’ve been in deadline city catching up with columns etc for the last couple of weeks so have missed a few of friends’ posts, including yours. Looking forward to catching up after I return from a few days in the Scottish Highlands. Yes, everything feels pretty retro at present…but it’s a great time for every kind of verb beginning with RE…
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