What Can It Do For You?
Why astrology? Why bother? What does it mean? Is it really a pseudo-science like the scientists (some of them) say? Is it worth the bucks having a reading? Would astrology look different on Mars (Yes) and will Elon Musk really be able to answer that one, one day? (No). And in any case aren’t you better off inspecting the entrails of a chicken to discern your life path? ⎯ ‘cos that would be cheaper, right?
These and other questions…
A couple of years ago I went to somewhere north of Ann Arbor, Michigan, to help build a straw bale house in the middle of a twenty acre field. Oh yes, and I paid for the privilege.
We were some 30 attendees on the course all camping in tents and for the week the sky was mostly overcast. Except one night when I got up to have the small hours portaloo experience, and that was memorable.
Not, you understand because of the unique aroma that pervades that establishment when more than a few humans perform bodily functions in a confined space in the middle of a very large field.
No.
Memorable because the bowl of heaven was clear. Completely clear, and the city lights were far away, and the stars, or as astrologers call them, “The Fixed Stars” ⎯ a completely inaccurate title we now know ⎯ were bright and brilliant and the starlight fell to Earth illuminating the alfalfa. And the stars were singing to each other in a frequency that I could not hear although I knew it was there.
As usual Shakespeare got there first:
Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholds But in his motion like an angel sings . . . Such harmony is in immortal souls But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
I stood for a while seeking the whisper of the universe, then I sat on the ground and looked up, and when my neck got stiff I lay horizontal on the earth not minding the dew. Time passed and then the portaloo aroma bought me back to this planet and I took my “muddy vesture of decay” back to my tent, better for the experience.
That’s not astrology exactly. Or at least not as a Sun sign column in a glossy magazine which tells you whether it’s a good day to go shopping, or if date night looks promising.
Astrology, when open to the wonder that is the connected universe approaches the mystic. And that’s a good thing. Is it not useful in our quotidian round to have a portal (rather than a portaloo ⎯ you can get those anywhere), a portal that can take you off world?
Our spaceship Earth spirals its predestined round and if your mind is full of mortgage or rent, or full of does he/she like me ⎯ is it not useful to remind ourselves that we are stardust, and that no matter how many houses we build, our appearance here is a very temporary affair?