Introducing Meditations on An Astrological Mandala

Greetings!

Allow me to introduce this project as it revealed its process to me. This blog-series is organized around responding to Rudhyar's Sabian Symbol of the day (based on the Sun's location in the Tropical Zodiac). My intention is that this blog-series will model a process of inquiry that creates a hybrid of anecdotal account as anchored in a designated system which provides a basis for comparison of otherwise extremely subjective content.

First, a note on astrology and my relationship to it. I am a doctoral candidate at San Francisco's California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in the program called PCC, which stands for Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. The motto reads: The Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program is dedicated to re-imagining the human species as a mutually enhancing member of the Earth community. I find this community to be a very sincere group of individuals who are committed to holistically addressing the challenges of our time, especially as relates to coming into right relationship with Earth's eco-systems that sustain life.

Today's Sabian Symbol: THE GREAT PYRAMID AND THE SPHINX

Rudhyar, 1973, p. 218: Sun at 14° Sagittarius

Professor Richard Tarnas, author of Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche, teaches a revisioned form of Western astrology that is emerging back into contemporary utilization through the recently named scholastic field of Depth Psychology. We PCC scholars refer to these studies as Archetypal Astrology. Key scholars of Depth Psychology whose thoughts influence this work include C.G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, Marie Louise von Franz, James Hillman, and Stanislav Grof, among others.

Astrology, or the calculation of the relative location of our Solar System's planets against the 360° back-drop of the Zodiac from the viewpoint of one's given geographical location on Earth, can be approached in many ways and for many types of inquiries. One could imagine the motion of the planets sending out from their orbit that rippling of energy that defies Cartesian-Newtonian explanation by echoing into human culture and coming to be associated, with an astonishingly high degree of correlation, with archetypes that shape our lived experience.

The Sun is at the center, and is tracked from Earth's view along the belt of the Zodiac (according to the Tropical system, in this case, due to its perceived potency.) In An Astrological Mandala Rudhyar reinterprets the traditional symbols to create a model of transformation broken into 360 symbolic and archetypal phases upon which the following blog-posts will be based. Each entry will coincide by date with the astrological position of the Sun, and will be a response to Rudhyar's re-interpreted Sabian Symbol.

Selections by Richard Tarnas & Keiron Le Grice

How can Archetypal Astrology be useful in your life? There are many applications for Archetypal Astrology such as cultural studies in the form of historical event- or person-based analysis (See Cosmos and Psyche by Tarnas), psycho-spiritual development, and trauma clearing (See Grof's body of scholarship) are some important areas being explored.

Grof's The Adventure of Self-Discovery

PCC Alum, Keiron Le Grice, Ph.D. is author of several titles that exemplify applications for Archetypal Astrology such as The Archetypal Cosmos: Rediscovering the Gods in Myth, Science and Astrology (2010), Discovering Eris: The symbolism and significance of a new planetary archetype (2012), and The Rebirth of the Hero: Mythology as a Guide to Spiritual Transformation  (2013)

The study of Archetypal Astrology is one excellent means of cultivating archetypal knowledge, and honing one's archetypal eye. Personally speaking, this is a very enriching experience.

In my case, I am exploring the phenomenon of synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence. Through the study of Archetypal Astrology I am seeking to discover what I can about synchronicity through the interpretive posture called by Jung the symbolic attitude; a process supported by adopting "a definite view of the world which assigns meanings to events, whether great or small, and attaches to this meaning a greater value than to bare facts." (Jung, Psychological Types, p. 476)

Keiron Le Grice comments on perceiving one's experience through the lens of the symbolic attitude:

For indeed, archetypal meaning is not (or at least it should not be) merely something constructed in the individual human imagination; it is not the result of a subjective projection of meaning by an isolated interior psyche onto the external cosmos, itself essentially meaningless. Rather, it can only be properly understood, I believe, as the recognition and discernment of what seems to be some form of objective meaning inherent in nature, the revelation, perhaps, of the interior meaning of the cosmos itself—of what the ancients called anima mundi or world soul. (2012, p. 20)

Rudhyar's An Astrological Mandala

Adopting the symbolic attitude is a bit tricky when it comes to deciding what to share in a forum such as this. I hope to address this by anchoring my creative intuition and Girlcapsule's Protean-Ponderings in the prism that Rudhyar's book sets up. This allows some flexibility while also adhering to a system that others can follow: meditations based on the date and the corresponding position of the Sun against the Zodiac (Tropical).

May this adventure be one in which you discover yourself stepping down into the depth of knowing that is inside you and finding the place where the world soul whispers its secrets that only you as its unique vessel are capable to bring through.

What dreams may come?

Today I had a clear and pressing thought-image as I was preparing this introduction. The thought-image was "blue snake" which led me to the image below. Here is the first image in this sub-thread of inquiry...to be taken up again as it chooses to emerge. Look at the golden glow created by some trick of light while I was taking this image.

From Campbell's The Power of Myth: The Tree of Death and Life, from the Archbishop of Salzburg's Missal, 1481

What has this image got to do with the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid? To discover this leap of symbolic attitude logic read the next post which constitutes the first official entry in Girlcapsule's Protean-Ponderings.