Back when I was earning my master’s degree in English at Southeast Missouri State University, I worked as a secretary to five psychologists. A joke in the Department of Education and Psychology at the time was that the (about to retire) president of the university had recently announced that he “believed in psychology.” As Dr. Greg Dickey (still my friend forty years later) kept saying to anyone who’d listen, “What’s to believe? Psychology is something that exists. It’s not something you believe in or don’t believe in."
I think it’s the same with astrology. Whether we believe in it or not, it still exists. Astrology is a psychic science (maybe call it an alternative science?) that has been around for a long, long time. As alchemy is the mother of modern chemistry, so is astrology the mother of astronomy. It was used in ancient days by the Egyptian engineers who built the pyramids, by the builders of Stonehenge and Newgrange, by the Chaldean mages who are said to have visited the baby Jesus. Maybe some people hold a naïve belief that the powers of our stars and planets run our daily lives as if they’re marionettes holding us by strings, but I think that if something has been used beneficially for such a long time, then there must be something to it. After all, we’re all made of star stuff. At the time of the Big Bang, when (so Kabbalists tell us) Ain Sopf pierced Kether for the first time and then flowed like a lightning bolt down the Tree of Life to Malkuth, everything in the universe was created. All the elements (chemical and alchemical) were present, all the seeds of mountains, mole hills, whales, flies, sequoias, tulips, and you and me. We’re all kin. We’re all made of star stuff. Maybe that’s one reason to understand that the stars and planets have some influence on us.
But whereas I know a lot about English grammar and usage, not to mention English literature (plus several other subjects), I’m a complete nincompoop where astrology is concerned. I just can’t remember the vocabulary. When people start talking about trines and nadirs and what’s in which house, well, my head just goes bye-bye. When I started writing Pagan Every Day and decided to write a page about each sun sign, I asked my friend Lilith for help. She gave me a thumbnail sketch of each sun sign. I expanded what she said and/or used what she told me to prime the pump of my daily essay. (But Lilith is not responsible for anything I wrote.) Another friend, Margaret, also gave me some interpretations; it was she who pointed out that maybe Sagittarius is the arrow itself, not just the person shooting the arrow. And my friend Liz regularly posts astrological essays to a listserv I’m on. She writes with verve and makes the occult astrological language more understandable to someone like me. I’m fortunate to have these three friends. When I ask questions, I get answers I usually pretty much understand. I don’t know, however, if they agree with my idea that because we’re made of star stuff maybe that’s why the stars have some influence in our lives. I haven’t asked them.
This week I’m suddenly curious about something. I’ve known for a long time that I’m a double Cancer (sun sign plus rising sign) with a moon in Gemini. Cancerians are nest-builders. Big time. (Just look at anywhere I’ve ever lived.) Gemini communicate. ( Duh.) I also have Mars in Aries, which someone once told me made me a pushy broad. ( Moi?) And I have Venus in Leo. (Which may explain why everything I ever wear is a costume and why I so thoroughly decorate my nests.) I’m also told that my sun has progressed to Libra and my ascendant has progressed to Virgo. What does this mean? Liz said it means I’ve gone through a process of honing and focusing. One example of this is that I redeveloped this web site and am writing blogs. Focus? That’s for sure. My moon has (I think I’m reading this right) progressed to Capricorn, which, Margaret says, “is self-discipline which balances [Cancer’s] feeling. Virgos and Capricorns are well organized.” Good list-makers. If I weren’t well organized, I’d never have earned a Ph.D. and I wouldn’t be sitting here right now writing this blog instead of living like a cat or reading a novel.
Here’s what I’m learning about my Cancer-progressed-to-Virgo-and-Libra self as it relates to the work I do. The Cancerian traits give me the ability to nurture my authors “in a kindly way, without crushing their egos.” I do indeed endeavor to be kind to my authors. I know how it feels to be edited and questioned. Used to be, when someone would dare to edit (read: change) any of my deathless prose, I’d sulk for three days. I’ve got it down to twenty-four hours now, but I know what it feels like to be insensitively edited. My authors are smart people, though maybe not where gooder English is concerned. I’m smart in a lot of subjects, but not always in what they’re writing about. If I think I may be changing the meaning of their sentence or paragraph, therefore, I’ll ask about it: As written, this says so-and-so. Is this what you mean? Only once or twice have I commented that what I’m reading is nonsense; more often, I’ll write another note: Do you really, truly believe this? Please clarify what you mean. Cancers are sometimes called "smother-mothers." I occasionally write a note on the proper use of points of ellipsis or semicolons or highly abstract (and therefore almost meaningless) prose and sign it, This is your mother speaking.
Liz told me that as a progressed Virgo I’m focusing my message (hopefully conveyed here in my web site) on my market “by sharing tidbits about [my] process." Process, she said, "is an extremely Virgo thing." And Libra signifies balance: I’ve stopped working twenty hours a day. I stop in the afternoon. Some days, I read with my eyes closed. Balance is good.
So that’s what I’m thinking about as we move into the spring equinox. Most people say that spring begins with the equinox, but I believe that it’s the midpoint, the hinge, of the season. But that may be a whole ’nother blog. For now, I’m glad for the sunshine and I hope all the people who have queried me lately will get over the hump and actually ask me to edit their books.