Poetry And Astrology: An Astounding Connection
Before taking a class on Archetypal Cosmology, I must admit, I was extremely clueless as to what was going on. I’ve had a couple of people read my astrological chart, but I wasn’t quite sure how to interpret those readings myself, even though the astrologers uttered some very detailed information about my destiny and the patterns of my most intimate relationships. The readings sounded romantic, alluring, and at times, strangely accurate. However, my skeptical mind struggled to make sense of it all. There was a part of me that wanted to believe it and another part that wanted to heed the advice of Sam Harris — someone I have admired from afar as a philosopher that brings evidence to the table and scrutinizes any way of thinking that doesn’t align with the strictest form of rationality. According to Sam Harris, astrology is outdated and a little ridiculous — a game played mostly by the Millennials and Generation Z to make an attempt at understanding their life on earth. It’s cute but not accurate; coincidental but not empirical. Battling with these two parts inside of me — the skeptic and the romantic— eventually lead me into the quiet and untrammeled world of poetry, an art that I am all too familiar with. This is where the world of astrology started to make a lot more sense.
My entire journey with poetry started after I had a mystical experience that shot me out of the water. Without going into too many details, I essentially dissolved in unconditional love and wept for about ten minutes straight after the experience because of how profound it was. When my girlfriend at the time tried to ask me what had happened, the word “God” wanted to slip out my mouth, but I was incapable of uttering it. In that moment, I knew what it meant to be lost for words, to have my words taken from me. And yet, words were all I had to describe the ineffable quality of the experience to my friends and family. When I did eventually tell my father and brother about the experience, they met me with a certain type of contempt that still confuses me to this day. My brother told me that the experience was simply caused by “neurons firing in the brain” (a typical reductionist reply) and my father’s response at the time was to remind me that I do not know enough about spirituality, so reading a few books about the Buddha would do me well. I was incredibly hurt after hearing their responses, because that experience would soon become the cornerstone of my spiritual life, a reminder of how deep the rabbit hole of reality goes. However, their responses were also the catalyst for what would become a fascinating relationship with poetry. Here was an art that could, as Alan Watts said, “eff the ineffable.”(Watts 2007) The first poem I wrote after the experience put me back into tears, and suddenly, I began to understand that the universe was far more than what the materialists had convinced me of before. What came through me on that day — and I use those words purposefully — was a reminder that the world was embedded with meaning, archetypes, story, magic, and something vastly mysterious. After writing that poem, I knew what it meant to be an artist and to say — paradoxically — what cannot be said. Here is one of the poems I wrote:
I remember looking down. I remember a flood of hair-raising memories being silenced by a love I can’t describe. After a few moments of fear, my head bowed down prayerfully, and my fingers dangled like puppets in the dream of God. That’s when I met the sun inside of me. A thousand lights all in one. I was a poem for truth to make use of, a divine composition made of space & light. Everything was unspeakably paradoxical inside this room, suspended like puzzles for a mind to give up on. For a moment I thought I was dead — the whole body: the eyes, the legs and hands, the fingertips, the heart beating in my chest. But it was unspeakably divine, and I was cheerfully dancing, with eyes closed, celebrating myself.
When I say, “I was a poem for truth to make use of,” I really mean it. During that experience, I felt like I was being written by the cosmos into its chapter of beauty, truth, and goodness — all at once. It’s no wonder Alfred North Whitehead defined God as a poet in Process and Reality: “God is the poet of the world, leading it with tender patience by the divine vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.” (Whitehead 1985) In other words, “God is the supreme or eminent creative power.” (D Viney 2004) When I started to dive into the world of archetypal cosmology, this is how I began to perceive the cosmos, as a divine and powerful poetic force of nature that is alive with novelty and creativity stretching far beyond our limited desire to compartmentalize the world and put things into boxes. I am reminded of a quote by Bruno Shulz that Tarnas shares in his article, Archetypal Cosmology: Past, Present, And Future: “So it comes to pass that, when we pursue an inquiry into a character beyond a certain depth, we step out of the field of psychological categories and enter the spheres of the ultimate mysteries of life. The floorboards of the soul, to which to we try to penetrate, fan open and reveal the starry firmament.” (Tarnas 2011)
My understanding of God as a creative power, and my connection to poetry as an expression of that power, drastically affected my understanding of astrology. For astrology, properly viewed, is a poetic representation of the journey of the cosmos. To be more specific — and to use the expertise of S.J. Tester — “the name ‘astrology’ appears to cover anything from a vague acceptance of ‘stellar’ influences on the lives of men to precise and fatalistic determinations of the future.” (Tester 1987) However you wish to interpret that definition, it cannot be denied that we are dealing with a tool that is working to uncover some of ultimate mysteries of life. Thus, we cannot approach the topic from the same place we approach conservative science or armchair philosophy. When I realized this, I finally began to understand why people would roll their eyes at me and grin, saying, “You’re such an Aquarius” when I went off on a philosophical rant about the nature of the universe. For Aquarius is an air sign — and people with these signs are known to be “thinkers, mentally oriented and intellectual; they specialize in ideas and communication (Riske 2007) It could be a mere coincidence that I am both an Aquarius and drawn to the intellectual and intuitive world, but to be honest, before my spiritual awakening, I wasn’t like this at all. In fact, I was a professional rugby player who ignored these capacities for the longest time. It was only when I stepped into my soul and honed my intuitive powers that the Aquarius archetype started to manifest in my world. This was a groundbreaking realization for me. If an archetype is a typical example of a person or thing, how can we become familiar with that person or thing if we are in deep slumber? The soul needs to wake up from the idea of being a finite person for their zodiac sign to make sense. Or, to use the words of Carl Jung, they need to make the unconscious conscious. After all, we are dealing with “certain aspects of the human being in regard to which there are no definitive pronouncements.” (Barz 1993) I am not saying this is always the case with everyone all over the world. Of course, if we discovered a person who had a spiritual awakening and didn’t embody their zodiacal sign, that would be enough evidence to prove my theory wrong[LM7] . We would also have to define the characteristics of a spiritual awakening — something this paper is not entirely concentrated on. All I am trying to do is point toward something interesting, for, as Whitehead boldly proclaimed, “It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true.” (Whitehead 2010) Many scientists and philosophers who are inclined toward the more materialistic way of viewing the world are going to struggle with this, because they are always searching for definitive pronouncements about a world they have imposed their limitations on — one they believe to be linear and mechanistic. But as Alan Watts has reminded us in his autobiography, In My Own Way, the world is “naturally wiggly (Watts 2007).” I had a philosophy professor in college, for instance, who thought it was a ridiculous idea to engage in a conversation about the Tao Te Ching because, in his words, it wasn’t saying anything useful at all. But that is only because his entire academic career up until that point required him to straighten things out. When we re-orient ourselves and attune to the novelty of the universe, only then do we receive the evidence that the universe is far more attractive than formal logic and systematic ways of thinking. I am not trying to downplay the role of systems and logic. Indeed, if it weren’t for the mathematical precision of astronomy, astrology would not exist. As Roger Beck Mentions in A Brief History of Ancient Astrology, “Astrology, in the form in which it developed historically, could not have done so unaided by mathematical astronomy…to predict earthly ‘outcomes,’ as in a natal horoscope, one must know the positions of the stars and the planets relative to each other and to the local horizon of the subject at the time of birth.” (Beck 2007) To understand the full depth of astrology, we must use the intellect and certain systems as a foundation to stand on so that we may look higher and dive further within ourselves. Just as we must let go of the raft that is Buddha’s teachings, we must also let go of the statistical mentality if we are to embrace the full depth of astrology.
Earlier in the paper, I briefly mentioned an archetype, but I did not elaborate on it enough. So, this part of the paper will be concentrated toward doing just that. In order to make the connection between astrology and poetry, it is important to first understand what an archetype is, for they both share an affinity for archetypes. I am imagining many of my readers are somewhat unfamiliar with the concept, or like myself, unable to pin it down with some exactitude. In an article called Archetypal Cosmology: Past And Present, Richard Tarnas does a fantastic job of summarizing the meaning of the word: “The word ‘archetype’ comes from Platonism, and indeed the archetypal cosmos was first articulated by Plato. Here was the philosophical vision of the universe as pervasively ensouled, informed by transcendent archetypal principles, and ordered in its complex celestial movements by a sovereign divine intelligence.” (Tarnas 2011) Where do Archetypes come from? According to Carl Jung, they emerge from the collective unconscious. To be more precise, archetypes are the contents of the collective unconscious. This is stated rather directly in his book, Archetypes And The Collective Unconscious: “The contents of the collective unconscious, on the other hand, are known as archetypes.” (Jung 1959) As I have said a few times in this paper already, we are speaking about the depths of experience, of matters to do with depth psychology — and because of this, misunderstandings are bound to take place, especially if one tries to grok all this on a purely rational basis. If one does try to do that, they will never understand what Becca Tarnas meant when she exclaimed at a talk about Tolkien and Jung that she felt like she had been to Middle Earth. This is where myth, poetry, and fairytale come into the mix. Indeed, many of the greatest myths to have been written — from The Iliad to The Odyssey — were done in a poetic form. And it’s no wonder: they were trying hint at the fact that the universe couldn’t be appreciated in all its grandiosity by merely scratching the surface of the conscious mind or informing oneself of the latest scientific evidence about a world made of “matter.” Whether we like to admit it or not, we are participating in a cosmos that grapples with such topics as: fate and free will, honor, friendship, death, and the hunt for meaning. All these topics (and much more) require a different use of our faculties, an archetypally precise and intuitively open attunement. In fact, as Rudolf Steiner once said, the practice of astrology requires an intuition that is connected to the cosmos in an extremely potent way. As he writes in Astronomy and Astrology: “True Astrology is a wholly intuitive science and requires the development of higher supersensory powers of perception in those who wish to practice it, and these powers can only be present in a minimum number of people today.” (Steiner 2012) People without these intuitive powers will always perceive astrology as some type of joke, even though some evidence from Stanislaf Grof and Richard Tarnas suggest otherwise. In their research, they discovered that there was an “Extraordinarily consistent and symbolically nuanced correlation between the timing of individuals’ major psychological transformations and the planetary transits in their natal charts.” (Tarnas 2011)
The strongest connection I have found with poetry and astrology has to be their use of symbols and their connection to the unconscious. I have hinted at this quite a lot in the paper so far, but now I am going to expand on it further. In the book, Imagery and Symbolism in the work of T.S Eliot[LM8] , it reads: “Images and symbols have always been the soul of poetry. Poets in all ages, in all countries and in all languages, have employed these devices to enhance their expression and create an impact on the reader. Thought, imagism, and symbolism as movements started in the 20th century, yet, poets, had been using these since the 16th century.” (Rajguru 2011) Becca Tarnas reiterates this same point in her essay, “Bearing The Passionate Soul”: “The soul of a poet already lends itself to rich symbolic interpretation, since it is in symbols and images that the poet expresses his imaginal world. (Tarnas 2014) Poets, like astrologers, use images and symbols to express the depths of the universe and how those depths manifest in one’s life. Sometimes, those symbols announce themselves in very strange ways, as if reflecting the depths of the unconscious. Symbols are used by the poet to “make the first utterance…from which in that silence, it is impossible to retreat.” (Whyte 2012) That first utterance, says Whyte, is “overheard” and doesn’t announce itself like an ordinary, conscious thought. Indeed, the very usage of the word “overheard” brilliantly lends itself to the idea of the unconscious. The poet, Robert Bly, restates this in his own beautiful language: “Most of the poetry written since the rationalists and pragmatists took over language resembles a trip on land. On land one is surrounded on all sides by recognizable objects. But when one enters the sea, the back is turned to recognizable objects and the face to something else.” (Buhner 2010) As a poet, there have been many times where I have written something down and not quite grasped the profundity of the words on the page. Sometimes, it feels like the poem has come from the depths of the collective unconscious to shed a new light and birth a new idea. In fact, it isn’t a shock anymore for me to feel like I am being driven by the words spilling onto the page. While they reveal themselves to me, the unknown starts to take shape. There is a quote from Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that explains this process so beautifully: “And as imagination bodies forth the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingness a local habitation and a name.” (Shakespeare 2010) When you sit down with an astrologer, one gets the curious sense that they are doing the same thing. Although they have a certain system they are working with, and a body of knowledge to assist with the reading they are doing for someone (the recognizable objects), their intuition guides the conversation and paints a picture in just the same way that the poet’s pen turns the forms of things unknown to different shapes and sizes. And remember: Jung thought of astrology as a projection of the unconscious. He argued that “The meanings once ascribed to the planets and stars, and thought to originate in them, actually stem from archetypes in the collective unconscious.” (Jung, Safron Rossi, and Keiron Le Grice 2018) As you can see, the essence of poetry and the essence of astrology obtain their inspiration from the same place, that realm of the world that is quiet but full of wonder, subtle but full of mystery, hidden but not for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see.
If everything I said is true, it shouldn’t surprise someone that there have been people who have attempted to “display through a poet’s song the riches of the sky.” (Marcus Manilius and Goold 2006) Marcus Manillius was such a person. In his prolific book, Astronomica, he uses the poetic form to illuminate the topic of astrology and all it represents. His book speaks to the stars and touches on topics such as free will, destiny, the nature of God, and the alignment of the stars and planets. What Manilius did back then [LM12] is rarely done today (though one can find a more pop-culture-esq imitation from the Astro-Poets on Twitter). Even after we have established the fact that astrology and poetry have so much in common and align with a perspective on the universe that goes far beyond a statistical mentality, the editor of Manilius’ book makes the mistake of writing that, “Even under the most favorable circumstances the composition of a didactic poem is likely to be a hazardous enterprise: when as in the case of astrology the theme involves numbers and tables, procedures and calculations, diagrams and catalogues, rhetorical virtuosity may with difficulty be attainable, but poetic distinction is likely to be beyond reach.” (Marcus Manilius and Goold 2006) Goethe himself — who many consider to be a universal genius — made the same mistake when he wrote down the following passage: “I began to read Manilius’s Astronomicon and soon had to put it down: no matter how much this philosophical poet festoons his work with lofty thoughts, he cannot redeem the barrenness of the subject… I consider that one has to debit the poet’s account with the ill consequences of a subject. After all, he is the one who chose it.” (Marcus Manilius and Goold 2006) Even though Goethe was himself a very talented poet (please read The Holy Longing) he didn’t grasp the significance of what Manilius was attempting to do. But this is not breaking news: poets — from William Blake to the mystical genius, Rumi — have been notoriously misunderstood for the longest time because of the way they present their insights. When you are opening the door for someone and they do not have the tools to walk inside, what else can you expect?
To finish off this paper, I would like to bring readers back to the stream of water running throughout it, and ask a few questions that are vital for the process of collective re-enchantment: How do we wish to orient ourselves to the vastness that is surrounding us? When we choose to look up at the stars, do we stand “wrapped in awe” by the great mystery? Do those sparkling pieces of wonder feed our soul or enhance our ego’s limitations? Do we pretend to be know-it-alls in the face of the mystery and replace story and meaning with numbers and tables? And lastly, do we demand of the universe that it give us definite answers? Or are we finally ready to realize that the best way to participate in the cosmos is to let go of our desire to define and categorize? Perhaps we are being painted on a canvas as we speak and pretending to be far more ordinary than we really are. [LM13]
Citations
Watts, Alan. In My Own Way: An Autobiography. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2007. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality. Riverside: Free Press, 2010. Tarnas, Richard. “Archetypal Cosmology — Past and Present by Richard Tarnas.” Scribd. Scribd. Accessed December 15, 2021.https://www.scribd.com/document/329520202/Archetypal-Cosmology-Past-and-Present-by-Richard-Tarnas. Steiner, Rudolf, and Margaret Jonas. Astronomy and Astrology: Finding a Relationship to the Cosmos. Rudolf Steiner Press, 2013. Tester, Stanley Jim. A History of Western Astrology. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999. Riske, Kris Brandt. Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Astrology: A Beginner’s Guide. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 2007. Barz, Ellynor, and Ellynor Barz. Gods and Planets the Archetypes of Astrology. Wilmette, Ill: Chiron Publ, 1993. Jung, C. G., and Hull R F C. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Rajguru, Kalyani. Imagery and Symbols in the Poetry of T.s.eliot. Lap Lambert Academic Publ, 2011. Tarnas, Becca. 2014. “Bearing the Passionate Soul: An Astrological Analysis of Rainer Maria Rilke.” Becca Tarnas. December 5, 2014. https://beccatarnas.com/2014/12/05/bearing-the-passionate-soul-an-astrological-analysis-of-rainer-maria-rilke/. Whyte, David. 2012. River Flow: New and Selected Poems, 1984–2007. Langley, Wa: Many Rivers Press. Shakespeare, William, Suzanne Delle, Regina University, and Casino. 2010. A Midsummers Night’s Dream. Hanover, Nh: Productions In Print. Jung, C G, Safron Rossi, and Keiron Le Grice. 2018. Jung on Astrology. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, Ny: Routledge. Stephen Harrod Buhner. 2010. Ensouling Language : On the Art of Nonfiction and the Writer’s Life. Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions. Autor: Marcus Manilius, and G P Goold. 2006. Astronomica. Editorial: Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Viney, Donald. 2020. “Process Theism.” Edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-theism/.