The Goddess Planets and Their ImportanceA Sign of the Times
By Lynda L. Abdo
(c) Lynda Lee Abdo is a certified advanced Feng Shui consultant and astrologer, artist and speaker. Email her for a reading or more information at lynabdo@gmail.com
Astrology - as a practice - began from observing the heavens to record the star cycles such as the Big Dipper so that we could predict the seasons and know when winter was coming. This knowledge was essential to survive as a species and ancient astrologers created the first calendars. Human behavior was influenced by the seasons. Moon cycles especially govern not only the tides and menses, but also the growth of many plants, and early farmers would live by their almanacs.
Astrology can also reveal the hidden potential of our personalities. The location of the Moon in our chart shows our emotional nature and what we need to feel nourished in our life. The aspects of our personality we are unaware of will affect our behavior on an unconscious level. Much of human behavior is reactive, prompted by our fears and defense mechanisms. Many of us feel we live in a potentially hostile world.
The great psychologist Carl Jung defined the most prevalent illness of our times, for most people past the age of 35, as spiritual suppression. What this means is that all human beings have a need to feel connected to something larger than themselves. If they do not, they will suffer from myriad complaints. Although religion can sometimes satisfy this need, it has nothing to do with credos or a formalized religion. As humans, we truly have a need to feel attached to something of real significance such as truth, that will not disappear with time, and it is our unconscious mind that can connect us to this essential source. It is a valuable part of who we are, but largely untapped.
It was Carl Jung's women patients who really opened up his experience of the unconscious and helped him discover the anima and animus (the internal yin and yang) and our need for balance and wholeness. Jung brought a respect for the feminine energy into modern day psychology. Our intuitive mind - in contrast to our rational mind - often speaks through our dreams using a visual language tied to feelings; and it is this language that is connected to our higher sense of self, and a sense of the infinite.
Our history the past 2,000 years, with the advent of civilization and the preference for rational thinking, has almost completely cut off our unconscious intuitive self. It is our rational side that has aided humans in developing an important free will. The conscious mind, however, is generally uncomfortable with the unknown and so devalues it. So to compensate, our forgotten unconscious does try to talk to us through dreams, even in the form of nightmares if necessary. Recent human history has begun to experiment with new (and old) hallucinogenic drugs, chaotic forms of modern art, and a dark look at the shadow in popular culture in an effort to reconnect us with our forgotten self. This hidden side is not necessarily bad or evil, but just unknown. The concept of evil is based in harming others, not in knowing the self.
In Jungian psychology, that which is hidden (in the psyche) often gets projected outwards as an effect or objective occurrence. This is what is known in psychology as "projection." It is our unconscious nature trying to balance our personality. If we refuse to deal with some aspect of our personality and suppress it, what happens is our psyche will attract the same challenge on the outside in order to force us to integrate that part of ourselves. This is accomplished through our relationships with others. Our subconscious mind is not only our shadow or primal self, but also a rich fertile field of imagination, energy and creative impulses that can be used for our benefit.
The predominance of the masculine rational mind came to the forefront of our conscious development about the time of the written word. It was the beginning of our self-directed will as separate from nature. This occurred simultaneously with the advent of the male patriarchal Gods of Thor, Yahweh, Allah and Zeus. The Goddess cultures were being abandoned as civilization grew. With the growth of agriculture and the cities, human beings for the first time could accumulate wealth and needed a regular militia to protect those newfound resources. With the loss of the Goddess worship, humans also abandoned our reverence for nature in large numbers and sought instead to dominate earth's resources.
The goddess image is an archetype or universal symbol. Carl Jung was the first psychologist to understand the importance of archetypal imagery. An archetype is a symbol of potential human behavior or roles that have a history and an accompanying energy field. These special symbols emerge into our dream world in consistent ways no matter what culture you were born into. For example, if your life needs greater logical guidance, the "wise old man" may appear to you. If you need to reconnect with the healing earth in some way, or need feminine guidance, your anima (female aspect for a man) or fairy godmother may appear instead. If a man needs to separate himself from his mother, the negative anima may appear such as a Medusa or Harpie. Sometimes these archetypal energies will take the form of an angel, or even a totem animal to deliver an important message to your conscious mind. Nowadays, modern man seldom pays attention or takes note of his dreams or these forms of communication.
Astrology, as a practice, can help to open up this symbolic world. Astrology is about natural cycles, archetypes and synchronicity. The planets do not cause events, but are rather like a huge cosmic clock foretelling likely potentials. For example, the Sun is in the highest point in the sky at 12:00 noon, every day. The clock does not cause this occurrence, but simply lets us know the most likely time of the hottest part of the day. Another example would be the sign Capricorn occurring in December at the depth of winter when we were often bound into our homes by large snow drifts and scarce resources. Capricorn is a sign that emphasizes our need to conserve, be practical and mindful of boundaries. When the Sun moves through the sign of Capricorn, we can also tend to feel unsure or melancholy, all typical of the isolated long dark days of winter. This deep understanding helps us to become more whole in our awareness of our world and ourselves.
The constellation of the zodiac reflects our evolution as human beings, and the planetary bodies represent aspects of this growing awareness. Western and Vedic astrology traditionally emphasize the male qualities: the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Pluto, Neptune and Uranus are all masculine. These Gods were very powerful, warlike and often violent. Mercury, the messenger, was considered a hermaphrodite (like the angels) and only Venus and the Moon represented the feminine qualities.
With science and technology, we have developed our objective knowledge at the expense of our inner sense of balance and conscience. We often consider ourselves as separate from the Earth and have removed ourselves from her natural healing abilities to our own detriment. Interestingly enough, the newly discovered asteroids have been named with feminine qualities honoring the ancient goddesses, creating a greater balance of yin and yang, the masculine and the feminine in the heavens, suggesting also that a greater balance on earth will soon follow.
The new asteroids christened include the following keepers:
Eris: Testing the status quo
Ceres: Mothering, nurturing, the harvest and going up against the underworld
Juno: (Roman) Queen of Heaven, protector of marriage
Vesta: Keeper of the sacred fire, hearth and home
Athena: Showing wisdom, courage and inspiration, the Amazon
Sedna: (Inuit) Goddess of the sea (a.k.a. the subconscious mind)
Haumea: (Hawaiian) bringing forth new life, birth and fertility
With the discovery of Eris (goddess of Discord) our outer planet Pluto lost his stature as a full-fledged planet and was demoted to a dwarf planet. This is interesting because in myth, Pluto represents the underworld of Hades that now has an official lower rank. Ceres, about the same size as Pluto, (largest asteroid in the Kuiper belt) was promoted from being a mere asteroid, to being a full-fledged dwarf planet. Ceres rules the harvest and bounty of the Earth. Ceres rules what we need to feel nurtured (cereal comes from Ceres.)
If you know Greek mythology, Ceres and Pluto are related (Pluto kidnapped Ceres' daughter Persephone to live with him in the underworld). According to the Greeks, this is how their seasons came about. When Persephone lives in the underworld, Ceres grieves and nothing on Earth grows, giving us the long scarce months of autumn and winter. Interestingly too, there is scientific evidence that Ceres and Pluto are made from the same elemental materials; but they managed to situate themselves in vastly different orbits around the Sun. Pluto orbits in the vast, darker extremities of the solar system, and Ceres is comfortably close to the Earth. Is this just coincidence?
Archetypal energies appear universally in all mythic traditions and are used today in astrology, psychology, and modern dream analysis. Ancient practices such as Feng Shui and divination of various sorts also use these energetic symbols. "Divining" literally means to receive a divine message and this practice was frowned on by the Church, of course, since they did not recognize any wisdom outside their own doctrines. Mere mortals were not allowed to contact God directly, but this attitude is changing rapidly.
So the new acknowledgement of the sky goddesses are suggesting a leveling in the playing field of traditional patriarchal rule. In essence it is a movement towards psychic wholeness. We have become powerful, self-willed beings who live at a level of wealth and comfort never before experienced; but we need to reconnect with nature and live in greater harmony with the wisdom of the Earth to continue to prosper. Many of the mythic goddess energies were very protective of human beings, for example, Gaia, the personification of the Earth who has been brought back to life in recent years to help motivate us to protect our environment. This is also essentially the Taoist philosophy of the I-Ching, the Dao and the roots of Feng Shui. We need to learn to live in harmony with our surroundings, and there is innate healing in this wisdom.
In the end, we ideally want to learn to blend our masculine with our feminine traits, our rational mind with the imaginative, our conscious awareness with our intuitive inspiration. This is already happening on many fronts. When we can find inner harmony and wholeness, our outer life also changes and ultimately becomes more fulfilling, and we get healthier, both emotionally and physically.
Astrological observation and a natal analysis chart can help to unveil these personal mysteries so you can live a life of greater fulfillment without all the difficult trial and error so many of us go through. Socrates advised us to "Know thyself" in order to find that elusive inner balance. Isn't it time you had your astrology chart deciphered by a good astrologer?
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