Wednesday, August 27, 2014

An Astrological Spirituality



An astrological spirituality means living with a keen awareness of the differences within time and space. In our everyday mind, time and space are viewed as profane, homogenous, mundane, of no special merit. Typically they have little or no qualitative difference. Is it possible that the way we in the West consider space and time contributes to a sense of malaise and boredom which seems a permanent feature of American life?  Each day is fairly much the same as the next. The once set apart holy day of Sunday now affords me the same ease as any other day of the week for shopping, purchasing alcohol, and even working. Holidays (holy days) such as Memorial Day can be celebrated anywhere from the 25th to the 31st of May. Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, and Labor Day float on the convenience of Mondays. Thanksgiving is the 4th Thursday in November. These are not cosmically determined like the solstices, equinoxes, and cross quarter days. These cultural observances do not connect us to a living cosmos.

            Astrological time however is very different. We can’t just move time around capriciously, changing holidays and birthdays willy-nilly to fit our daily schedules. Time is so important that depending on when a person is born is a fundamental key to understanding that life. Time is qualitative in that each moment is unique from any other, more propitious for certain kinds of activities and less so for others. Time is viewed liturgically, similar to the ritualized days and months of the church year. In other words, time expresses meaning.

            An astrological spirituality confers an appreciation for the daily round. Time is imagined as overlapping, interpenetrating shorter and lengthier cycles of change. To recognize the repetitiveness of time is to accept endings, gain the capacity to start over, to be born again, to face living with trust in the eternal returning. I’m not speaking here of simply spinning your wheels or going in circles, though that may be necessary at times, but rather the possibility of ever widening spirals of experience weaving more inclusiveness into life as we spin the fabric of our destinies.

            What about space? Modern life holds space and place with the near same indifference as time. Now of course, we can speak of beautiful or decaying spaces in America but overall, space is generally viewed as homogenous. If I am eating at McDonalds in San Francisco or NYC my experience of eating there has little qualitative difference. My experience of Walmart in Denver is fairly identical to the one in Cleveland. It used to be that traveling held great surprises in place but now we seek the shelter of Ramada Inns, Hyatts, and Hiltons guaranteeing that our experience in new cities is familiar. For the majority of Americans, modern America has no sacred space. Americans esteem no sacred rivers or trees, pilgrimage to no sacred mountains, pray at no sacred wells.

The astrological life however carries the fantasy that place matters, whether in relocational charts or in natal charts.  My birth place reflects the nature of my inner being. Sacred space and sacred time add depth, difference, and color, enriching what it means to be alive. The astrological view sees the classical transcendence of divinity translated to the immanence of  the Sacred in every place and in each moment. We live a sacred life and the birth chart is a sacred image.

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