Tag: religion

My Favorite Psychopomp: Virgo, Mercury, and the BVM

Leave a comment

I’m undergoing something of a spiritual key change.

I’m playing variations on the same material I always have, but as my understanding has deepened and broadened (and as Jupiter has been transiting my 9th house in Scorpio), I find that these days I’m playing this material at a new pitch level that’s requiring any number of adjustments to compensate for the untold variety of different harmonics and intonations that my life’s song is generating at this new pitch. In fact, it’s almost as though there needs to be a pause for re-instrumentation, because some instruments can’t play in A major as easily as they can play in B-flat major, if you’ll allow my overblowing of the metaphor.

The Blessed Virgin has a hold on the scruff of my neck that doesn’t seem to let up, regardless of how my spiritual schemata continue to shift and grow and change under Jupiter’s enervating influence. She’s been in my corner for quite a while, as far as I can tell. Which is why this particular Virgo season has me thinking more deeply about the connection between the sign of the Virgin and the person of the Virgin, both as an archetypical reality and as a means of interpreting things going on in Mercury’s nocturnal home.

The association between Virgo and the BVM is a facile one, and I’m well aware that there are any number of myths undergirding both the sign and the constellation of the same name—most notably Astraea and her Eagle—but, for me, the connection to the BVM mythos is doubly strong because of my particular religio-cultural context. I’m also a Virgo Sun, so, I have lived the bulk of my life growing into an understanding that a fundamental ego purpose of my existence is to adapt and to perfect within the material realm.

While listening to commentary on Virgo placements during an episode of my friend Melanie’s podcast, I suddenly found myself thinking once again about this connection between Virgo and the BVM not because of any sacred baggage we might attach to “virginity” but rather because of the idea of “adapting to material learning” that Demetra George uses as a byword for Mercury’s purposes in Virgo.

Virgo is, when you’ve gotten down to the heart of its significations, primarily about making things real. This is why Jupiter struggles so hard here, and most Virgo Jupiters I know skew towards a particular kind of over-examined rigidity whether in faith or in skepticism. Mercury, however, rejoices to make things real, taking ethereal concepts like words and meaning and value and transmuting them into material things that we can pick up and share and carry around with us and distribute and hoard—things like money, or books, or words, or even ideas themselves. Mercury transforms the extraordinary things of our hopes and dreams and wildest imaginations into the ordinary stuff of everyday life, but in the most extraordinary of ways.

With this movement towards reality in mind, I want to look again at what I consider one of the peak moments of the story of Mary in the New Testament, namely, her song of exultation after having shared with her relative Elizabeth what has happened to her, viz., being told by the angel Gabriel that she is to give birth to a messiah:

My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.
(Luke 1.46-55, KJV)

There is a lot that could be said here, but I want us to think about this: the story of Mary, a peasant girl from a nowhere town with no social prospects, who has become pregnant out of wedlock and has an unbelievable story about precisely how that happened, who is part of a people group who live under the thumb of oppression, has every reason to expect that her wildest dreams will never come to fruition and to linger in Piscean/Jovian dissolution. To wit, she is easily the first candidate for someone we would imagine would have no recourse in this world but to escape into flights of fancy.

But if we notice how the writer of Luke’s gospel has recorded Mary’s words, we notice one thing: nothing is in the subjunctive. All of her declarations are in the perfect tense; they have been accomplished, and there’s nothing left to wait for or to let remain the purview of dreams. Notice too that Mary’s Mercurial song of transmutation and magnification takes an easy potshot at everything Jupiterian or Piscean: “[God] hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.” After all, magnification is the very process by which the small becomes visible.

Mercury has transmuted what we would expect to be Piscean idealism and dissolution into the here and now, and not just the spiritual here and now, but the real socio-political right here, right now—what Mary sings of is not “salvation” as in being removed to some far away place, but rather the kind of salvation that manifests in corrupt governments being overthrown and the last and the least being given, at last, justice and equity in their plight. Adaptation to material knowledge, indeed.

Virgo scatters imaginations and flights of fancy to magnify the utterly real day-to-day stuff; Mary’s song draws the reader’s attention to that which is most on the minds of this oppressed and colonized people group and states, in no uncertain terms, that what was once the exclusive purview of dreams and prophecies has become as matter of fact as the sky’s being blue. That seems to be what it is that Virgo does, and likewise what the BVM does with all of us who have a connection with her ancient and archetypical image: she magnifies and realizes, leaving us unable to let that which is most important to us remain the exclusive purview of some far-off hope.

I’d also add briefly that Mary serves an important role as psychopomp and intercessor between humanity and the divine. Considering the overlapping function of Mercury within Greco-Roman mythology, this is not something to overlook. I surmise that this is one of the reasons that the BVM-as-Virgo archetypical notion serves to reinforce the idea of the priorities of Virgo being servile and helpful. If Mercury in Gemini is a fleet-footed go-between, Mercury in Virgo is much more strongly connected to the idea of advocacy and assistance—an “in” with the divine, so to speak, which is precisely the BVM’s function in non-Protestant religiosity.

Perhaps this is another one of the reasons that I have such a devotion to her. Because I was socialized believing that God is fundamentally “male” (even though that’s not a defensible position theologically) and, after all, I’m afraid to talk to men. But I can talk to Mary any time with the ease and facility of talking to an old friend’s mom at the dinner table. This ease and facility is another one of Virgo’s key significations, for Mercury here can adapt immediately to any incoming information or material and get it precisely to where it needs to go in order to be most effective, just as Mary and other such psychopomp figures can route incoming souls, prayers, magics, etc. to precisely where they will be most effective.

It’s with all this in mind that both my spirituality and my astrological practice continue to grow and reorganize as I draw close to my next solar return—which will ensconce the perfecting Mars/Uranus square as thematic of the next twelve months, and Mars rules my 9th. All that to say, what key this life-music will end up in by next September is anyone’s guess, but at the very least my Virgo sun will know what to do with all of that information when I get there.

Featured image by Jochen Rehm | Alamy Stock Photo

The Astrology of Spirituality, Part 2

Leave a comment

In my last entry in this series, I laid out some ground rules for the way we might approach and understand the way a person’s approach to spirituality is coded in their natal chart so that we astrologers, as persons engaged in spiritual care and “pastoral counseling,” can best target our own approach to these matters with our clients. I put out an all-call on Twitter for people who might be interested in having me delineate their charts for them in this matter, and the following three charts are the first set of those who graciously volunteered their data for this project.

In each case I’ve delineated the chart first and then gone back to the individual to determine what they have to say about their own spirituality. Let’s recall what the basic significations are which we’ll be taking under consideration:

  • First, we look to any planets placed in the 9th house or the 3rd house (the spirituality/religion axis), and their dignities and fortitudes. Since these houses are by nature cadent, we’re not going to consider cadency by placement as much of an accidental enfeeblement as we would otherwise.
  • If there are no planets there, we then look to Jupiter as well as the 9th ruler, specifically to their natural significations and placement, as well as to their dignities and fortitudes, including planetary motion, phasis, etc.
  • In doing some additional research, I discovered some references made by Anthony at Seven Stars Astrology citing Mercury as the natural significator of rationality and critical thought, as well as Saturn as the natural significator of doubt, fear, challenge, and rot—so I shall be considering them as well from here out (briefly).
  • We’ll also keep the ascendant and its ruler in mind as the general significator of the native themselves.

As we saw from the examples shared last time, essential dignity is not the only factor we need to take into consideration when judging an individual’s propensity to religiosity, as all three of the individuals judged in the last set had Jupiter in debility but strongly placed and ruling significant places in the chart. Wade made the comment that planets in debility, especially angular ones, sometimes tend to attract the attention of the native in such a way that they become major life foci, and I found this to be true in the three previous examples.

This time around, all but one of the charts have Jupiter in one of his signs, whether Sagittarius or Pisces; the remaining example has Jupiter in Aries in a day chart (though in this case the Sun is within 5º of the Descendant, so we may surmise that the chart could, in some ways, behave as a night chart). As a reminder, I’m using Placidus houses, Dorothean triplicities, Chaldean decans, and Egyptian terms.

CHART FOUR

spirituality chart 4.pngRight off, we see that we have Pluto in the 3rd, but we’ll hold off on judging that for now. The 3rd/9th axis for this individual lies across Sagittarius and Gemini, so we are going to be looking first off at Jupiter and Mercury, as well as the Moon, and at Saturn. We might as well bring Venus into the mix too as we’re looking at the ascendant and its ruler, but let’s focus on Mercury and Jupiter for now.

As ninth ruler, Mercury happens to be in a mutual sign reception with Mars and is empowered because of that reception. Mercury is also in an angular house and further supported by the sextile from Jupiter which is still active yet separating at this moment.

This would be a passable Mercury on its own, but we also see that Mercury is co-present in the sign with restrictive Saturn, who rules the 4th (home and ancestry) and the 5th (creative work and self-propagation). Mercury likewise is under the beams—but not combust! Mercury is two degrees shy of making a phasis, emerging from the Sun’s beams presently—and will in fact do so within a few days of this native’s birth. I’m not content calling this a phasis yet but it will be presently.

Remember too that Aries is a cardinal fire sign, so we might adjudge that the native will approach matters of spirituality in a way that demonstrates motion towards initiating one’s own identity knowledge. I very specifically use the word “initiating” there for its specific overtones of religious initiation—this person will need to undergo some kind of initiatory experience to make their spirituality truly their own and to emerge from the influence of their upbringing.

Meanwhile, Jupiter rules the 3rd, the “religion” house as well as that of neighbors, etc. and is placed in Aquarius in the 5th house, a fixed air sign, supporting Mercury by sextile. Jupiter in Aquarius knows what it is that it believes and will nary be convinced otherwise (fixity of ideas is thematic), but because of Aquarius’ humane nature, and even moreso because of Jupiter’s rulership of the 3rd as well as the 6th, this individual’s neighborhood religiosity may aptly be described as a sense of familial obligation to tradition. If this works for the native, great, but if they feel they need to move forward in a different direction (as I imagine they would because of their Mercury placement), they must do so in conversation with the tradition whence they came.

My judgment would be that the spiritual practice of this individual is Mercurial in nature, investigatory by virtue of the 9th cusp’s placement in Gemini and has as one of its major themes the sense of emergence from patriarchal influence, even though it will be bolstered by this native’s ability to remain connected to their communal traditions in some meaningful way (3rd house ruled by Jupiter, who supports Mercury via sextile). That said, the obsession with which they might pursue those connections could cause them to overcorrect in one direction or the other, especially if they try to separate themselves from the influence of older and more powerful men (Pluto on the 3rd cusp, Mercury is combust while the Sun is the sect light, Saturn co-present with Mercury in 7).

The native responded:

“ ‘The native’s story of religiosity and spirituality is going to be about emerging from underneath the influence of tradition and ancestry to come to a spiritual horizon of their own discovery.’ I just want to say that I strongly resonate with this quote and this is basically a very small sum of my spiritual journey.” The native’s parents raised her in Christianity, but later in life, the native proceeded to find her own spirituality through philosophy. She notes, “my solar return for 2017 really brought the notion for the self-discovery to come up. It was a 9th house profection year for me and I had a stellium in that house. That year, I changed to a philosophy major.)”

The native also wrote that “the native will approach matters of spirituality in a way that demonstrates motion towards initiating one’s own identity knowledge” was an accurate statement, reporting, “a topic that I am very strongly interested in is the philosophy of identity and how to go about creating and sustaining one. It’s interesting that you said an initiatory experience, because that most definitely happened. The wheels on creating on my spirituality remained dormant until I discovered astrology.” The native also confirmed that I don’t quite she indeed experienced obligation to follow the spirituality of the people surrounding her, saying, “I do have a very strong need to overcorrect myself to connect myself to communal settings.”

CHART FIVE

spirituality chart 5.pngHere, the 3rd/9th axis lies across Libra (11º48’ on the 3rd) and Aries on the 9th, with the Sun placed in the 9th in his exaltation and ruling the ascendant. Right off the bat, we have a notable portent that the question of spirituality and religiosity will factor in prominently not just in the native’s life but in the very way the native lives in and moves through the world. As we saw with the previous native, their will is oriented towards initiating identity learning, that is, establishing who it is they are in the world, and moreover in this instance, the realm of life where that plays out is the field of spirituality and religion.

Lilly writes that the Sun in the 9th “shewes much piety in the Native, gives religious Preferments, and makes admirable Preachers” (Christian Astrology 612). The Sun is exalted and joined with the North Node—to which point Lilly also writes, “if Jupiter, Venus, or North Node possesse the 9th… the Native proves a good Christian, and a lover of Religion wherein trained up” (612). That the Sun is exalted and “dialed up” due to the North Node’s proximity is an important factor in this native’s story of faith.

If we look at the 9th ruler, we see an exalted Mars in the 5th in Capricorn. This native engages their religiosity through the mode of creative expression and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they have a tendency towards the ancient and eldritch in their practice, as is apparent with Mars’ placement in this Saturn-ruled sign. I’d also note that Fortuna’s placement in the 3rd suggests the significance of incisive writing, communication, or networking to this person’s livelihood—but a more important indication of the same is the 3rd ruler being Venus, who also rules the 10th and is placed in her domicile conjunct the MC.

Let’s look at Jupiter, while we’re here: Jupiter is one of the chart’s final dispositors (the Moon and Venus are the other two, but neither of those have planets answering to them). If we follow the chain of dispositors, the Sun answers to Mars, who answers to Saturn, who answers to Jupiter. Mercury answers to Jupiter as well. So whatever skepticising or limiting factors may be present within the native’s life are beholden to this more prominent spiritual principle. Jupiter lies on the 8th house cusp in Pisces, where he has rulership. This is a religiosity that would rather dissolve into a cloud of prayer than have anything resembling a systematic theology (Mercury is in fall and detriment in 8th), and any attempts to systematize a conception of belief will not work for this native.

I also notice Mars’ application to Jupiter by sextile from the sign of Jupiter’s fall, suggesting a kind of creative tension that might emerge when the native’s roots and religion (4 and 9) butt up against the native’s creative self-propagation and their experience of death and the demands placed on them by other people (5 and 8). In fact I wonder whether the native’s roots and religion might become prominent fodder for the material the engage with in their creative endeavors, if they choose to do so.

Also of note here is the Moon’s application, from the 11th house, to the opposition of 9th ruler Mars from Mars’ sign of fall after having opposed Neptune. The sign of the 11th house is double-bodied and mutable, We see too that Mercury rules the 11th, and is placed in a double-bodied mutable sign as well (again, Mercury’s detriment and fall), suggesting that particular affiliations with societal groups, denominations, or other such entities will not be a comfortable one, despite the native’s desire to seek out emotional security through their attachment to group affiliation—and this will engender no small amount of change in the native’s life.

The native has reported that he is a musician and writer and works a day job while engaging in any number of creative venues with his free time. He was raised in a conservative Christian tradition and became an Episcopalian later in his life. He also spent some time in discernment for holy orders in the Episcopal Church (Sun in 9th!), though did not ultimately move forward in that process and instead began practicing Zen Buddhism while maintaining his connection to the Episcopal Church. He jokes that, at his funeral mass, he would like the Berlioz requiem to be played, the celebrant to say the mass in a hushed and terrified whisper, and the homily to be a Zen roshi screaming once and then sitting in silence while the congregation waits, bewildered, for what’s going to happen next.

CHART SIX

spirituality chart 6.pngHere, the 3rd cusp lies in Capricorn and the 9th in Cancer (the cusp of each being at 5º50’). We have no planets in the 9th, and in the 3rd, we have the Sun, who is just shy of the 5º mark of being on the cusp of the 4th. For all intents and purposes then, I’ll read the Sun in the 3rd, which Lilly says “doth increase the signification of goodness,” suggesting a natural inclination toward some sort of neighborhood practice.

The 9th is ruled by the Moon, who is placed in Sagittarius in the 2nd house. She separates from the square of Saturn and is actively applying to the conjunction of a peregrine Venus: we would expect this native’s approach toward spirituality is one of seeking out expansive and aesthetic expressions of beauty. Venus herself applies to the sextile of Mercury in Aquarius, and she applies from the sign of Mercury’s detriment. Neither Venus or the Moon are received by Mercury, and as the Moon will reinforce this connection by crossing Venus and immediately pushing her virtue to Mercury, I would suppose that that her significations will be regularly challenged by a searching scrutiny that invites the native to consider the social and societal impact of their spiritual dalliances.

Because Jupiter is well-placed by sign and in an effective house (though not as effective as one of the angles would be), we further expect Jupiter’s natural significations to be able to shine forth, especially in the native’s relationship to their finances or in their self-propagating work. The fly in the ointment here, however, is the presence of both Mercury and Saturn in an angular house (4th), where both of them have extensive opportunity to act but will have to rely on their dispositors to accomplish anything. Jupiter applies to Saturn from an overcoming square, pressing his agenda onto Saturn doubly since Saturn is ruled by Jupiter here (and Jupiter is the only final dispositor of the chart), yet Saturn regards the 9th cusp with a trine, suggesting that he almost has one hand stabilizing what could be an over-emotional, nigh charismatic spiritual temperament.

This individual will encounter barriers and restrictions anywhere they are making attempts to expand their horizons to include religiosity, and particularly as far as finance and fun are concerned. Given Saturn’s rulership of the 3rd and 4th house we would expect these constricting influences to emerge from the native’s neighborhood, siblings, parents, and upbringing. In particular, their dalliances with their concept of the divine will be watered down by incisive rhetoric from the groups they have found themselves allied to as well throughout their upbringing, almost as though their expanding and optimistic vision for what the world could be will be under constant scrutiny and will meet constructive resistance that ultimately yields and serves to provide them with a structure that allows their expanding beliefs to flourish.

The native responded:

“The sentiment that connects with me the most in your write up is the presence of an expansive religious influence mitigated by scrutiny. Despite being very receptive to a whole array of possibilities concerning invisible influence on human life, I feel obligated to filter these interests, somewhat, when presenting myself and my ideas. I think scientific materialism is short sighted, but I also think it’s reasonable for people to be weary of religion, and spirituality, for being exploitative, or heavy handed, in a lot of cases. I practice magic and have always felt there’s something deeper to the experience of life than just surface humanity, but I also remain agnostic, sensing that I won’t prove anything to my family and my community by religion alone. It feels like a charge to translate an internal optimism into material results that directly improve the lives of others.”

CHART SEVEN

spirituality chart 7.pngIf we’re going to talk about charts with dignified Jupiter, this would be a chart for the ages, considering Jupiter’s rulership of both the ascendant degree and the midheaven, his elevated placement in the chart, and his strong essential dignity. It should be no surprise that spirituality, religiosity, and values are of tremendous import to this individual. Jupiter is, however, retrograde, and the Sun-Jupiter opposition for this cycle is coming very close to perfecting while the Sun is in one of the signs of Jupiter’s detriment, highlighting a tension between ego identity and spirituality that may become emblematic of the native’s life—and this tension emerges most strongly in regard to the native’s experience of their parents or upbringing and their partners, where they may in fact feel confined by the tension. Their sense of duty or obligation is at direct odds with their very nature.

Moreover, Mars applies mutually to Jupiter by an overcoming square from the other sign of Jupiter’s detriment and ruling the 9th, almost as though the native’s experiences with a deep, searching, and exacting spirituality (Mars in Virgo angular) serve as a snare that presents the native with challenges throughout their life in the realm of coming to terms with themself as well as in their professional and vocational identity. Moreover, I suppose it would be difficult for this native to date or form collaborative partnerships with individuals whose beliefs or values differ from theirs.

At the same time, the Moon separates from the sextile of 9th ruler Mars, where she offended Mars with her sensibilities and application from the sign of Mars’ fall, and applies now to Venus, who doesn’t necessarily receive her but is amenable to her presence. Venus is situated directly on the 3rd house cusp suggesting that this individual’s experience of commonplace religiosity, so long as it remains unchallenged (which is unlikely due to Mars’ prominence and overcoming square towards Jupiter), will sit fairly well with them.

It’s also worth mentioning that the 11th ruler, Saturn, is in the 1st house, in Pisces, mollified somewhat by the sextile of Venus. Once again, Saturn attempts to structure, and he can’t do that very well in Pisces—this native’s relationship to structures and containers of faith will be difficult for them to navigate and they would likely do best with older traditions to have some sort of solid footing underneath the extreme expressiveness and forward-driving particularity they might otherwise pursue to their detriment.

This native, an artist (dignified Moon in 5 applying to the sextile of Venus in the 3rd) was raised in a conservative protestant environment and was involved with a number of evangelical campus ministries, but upon leaving college began studying Judaism out of a need to find an expression of faith that enabled them to be fully present to their sexual and gender identity. This person has a strong sense of values and has little qualm engaging with people with whom they disagree in sometimes spectacular fashion, but they care deeply about social justice and creating a more just world for all (Venus on the 3rd cusp, as well as opposing the 9th cusp, in Taurus). During their recent 11th and 12th house profection years, this native converted to Reform Judaism and is already exploring a possible career as a rabbi.

For kicks, I’ve included this native’s current solar return; they converted to Judaism about two and a half months after their birthday. This is a 12th house profection year, so the year ruler is Saturn. We see the telling mutual application of the Moon to Saturn right at the 4th cusp, which is the natal 11th cusp, while Mercury and the Sun gathered around the 9th house cusp—this is the natal 4th cusp. The Sun here, of course, rules the solar return 11th house. We might describe, briefly, this collection of significations as “entering into a new spiritual foundation.”

So what?

We see from the preceding examples that having a dignified Jupiter does not quite necessarily mean that the native will make religion or spirituality a major component of their life process, though it certainly can go in that direction. What I sense with this particular placement is that a dignified Jupiter demands authenticity in spirituality and will not suffer being sequestered to anything resembling “going along to get along,” unless, I suppose, said Jupiter had dominion over the 11th. Yet more research remains to be done regarding dignified Jupiter placements, and I’m especially interested in Jupiters that rule the 11th. The reason for this is because there’s a difference between pursuing an authentic spirituality as an individual, which is the case with each of the individuals above, and pursuing an authentic spirituality for you that happens to be the spiritual tradition in which you were raised.

Still more, we have seen here instances where malefics rule the 3rd or 9th house, and those malefic rulerships have almost served as factors to propel the native forward in their “spiritual journeys,” to use a hackneyed phrase of convenience. None of these individuals has necessarily found “ease” in their pursuit of an authentic spiritual position and praxis, but they have found what they sought (to my knowledge).

The next set of entries will look at arrangements that involve Jupiter in his exaltation and his fall (so, Cancer or Capricorn Jupiter placements) as thematic of that individual’s essential religious temperament, contrasted with the other considerations that Lilly and others have raised when judging a native’s propensity toward or away from spirituality. What I’d really like to do is look at the charts of a number of skeptics or hard-line atheists, though I don’t believe many of those will be lining up to volunteer their birth data. Such is the nature of the art, I suppose!

If you’d like to participate in my study, please get in touch! I’m extending a 10% discount on any of my services to participants.

The Astrology of Spirituality & Religion (Part 1)

Leave a comment

I have always found the stories behind an individual’s spiritual journey to be endlessly compelling. This is for good reason, considering what I do for a living—and by that, I don’t mean astrology. One of the ways I implement astrology is in the practice of spiritual direction, which, put simply, is making oneself available to listen to another person as they unpack the motions of their interior life in order to be able to offer them companionship. Spiritual direction is never “directive,” per se, and neither is the responsible use of astrology as a way of knowing.

I wondered aloud the other day on Twitter whether certain signatures in the natal chart could be used to describe (not to prescribe) the unfolding of a native’s spirituality. Being able to look at the natal chart and examine a person’s religious temperament would improve my ability as a pastoral caregiver to shape conversations in directions that are more fruitful for the task at hand, which is, namely, care of the soul.

For those unfamiliar, “care of the soul” is a coinage by the well-known author and therapist Thomas Moore, who defines it elliptically in his seminal work of the same name:

“…The first point to make about care of the soul is that it is not primarily a method of problem solving. Its goal is not to make life problem-free, but to give ordinary life the depth and value that come with soulfulness… The word care implies a way of responding to the expressions of the soul that is not heroic and muscular. Care is what a nurse does, and “nurse” happens to be one of the early meanings of the Greek word therapeia, or therapy… Cura, the Latin word used originally in “care of the soul,” means several things: attention, devotion, husbandry, adorning the body, healing, managing, being anxious for, and and worshiping the gods” (Moore 4-5).

In utilizing astrology in caring for their clients’ souls, the caregiver is accessing a most powerful tool—and it’s not for any small reason that Moore draws so heavily on the work of Marsilio Ficino. The working thesis is that, yes, spiritual temperament be discerned from the configuration of natal charts. If I know going into a consultation or a pastoral care visit that a given person is going to have difficulty engaging with abstract concepts when it comes to spirituality, I may as well focus on what appears to be the here and now in my time with them.

For some people, storytelling technologies like astrology aren’t something that they will want to access for spiritual growth, but rather, they want to have their anxieties assuaged about whatever is on their plate at the given moment. That’s as legitimate as my own desire to tease out the spiritual plotline of even the smallest chance incidents that happen in my day to day life. All that aside, having this information going into the consultation will enable the practitioner to speak the client’s language when it comes to matters of soul—and make for a more effective consulting practice without needing hours of interview time to learn each other’s language.

Beyond Lilly’s judgments in the third book of Christian Astrology, I’ve not seen any systematic work on how exactly one goes about this, so what I hope to do over the ensuing weeks and months is to build a collection of case studies that give practitioners inroads into how to address matters of spiritual temperament and “soul” with their clients. My own working thesis agrees with what Moore and Ficino both propose: yes, such information can indeed be gleaned from the natal chart, and various passages in the work of Lilly and others corroborate this.

The question stands: which points in the natal chart are we going to take to discern this information? In my initial tweet, I supposed that the Moon and Jupiter would be thematic, and my teacher and friend Wade Caves added that matters of the 9th house would also be germane here, as the Moon and Jupiter placement by sign are the same for every person every 2.5 days (which is a legitimate point). Lilly writes of the 9th house:

To start building some initial observations we’ll take the Moon, Jupiter, and the 9th house cusp and its ruler as our points of departure, weighing their dignity, aspects, and configurations with other planets. Let’s also take a look at Lilly’s rules for judging matters of religion:

“Saturn, Mars or South Node in the 9th, or Saturn or Mars in the 3rd opposite to the 9th house, being in a movable Signe, and Jupiter weak, peregrine or in his detriment, and in a cadent house, afflicted of the Maleficals, viz. Saturn or Mars, usually such Natives are either very backward in Religion, expresse little, or else are of none at all, or are perverted in that wherein they were educated, or if they doe stumble upon any Religion, they prove most pernicious Sectaries.
“But if Jupiter, Venus or North Node possesse the 9th or 3rd, the Native proves a good Christian, and a lover of Religion wherein trained up. The Sun, Moon, Mercury or Part of Fortune in those houses, are moderate Signes, and doe augment the signification of goodnesse, when in any benevolent aspect of Jupiter or Venus; decrease and diminish it when in aspect with the Infortunes.
“If no Planets occupy the 3rd or 9th, consider Jupiter, the naturall Significator of Religion, if he be in his owne House, Exaltation, and also in an angle, or in Reception with Venus or Sun, Moon or Mercury, it denotes a good minded and a religious man.
“If Jupiter be peregrine, in his Fall or Detriment, and in a cadent house of the Figure, and afflicted of the malevolents, he notes the contrary.
“I would not here in this Chapter have any man to think that the influence of the Starre, enforceth to this or that Religion, or that they are the causes of ones being either Religious or Contrary, it’s the grace of ones being either Religious or contrary, it’s the grace of Gods effects that, viz. gives Piety, Godlinesse, and the Graces of the Spirit; the Starres onely decipher the naturall propensity of the Native to good or ill, and whether he will be permanent or not in order, according to his naturall inclination.” (Lilly 611-612).

Lilly also includes aphorisms showing indications of piety or impiety in the chart, and as I start to build this log of case studies, I will keep those in mind as well. I’ve reproduced them here (they are, essentially, standard rules of dignity, debility, help, affliction, beneficence and malevolence). Meanwhile, I’ll interpret his comments about Christianity as we proceed, rooted as they are in the cultural milieu of a governmentally established Christian Church. In general, I think it’s a safe assumption that we might swap out “Christian” for whatever the mainstream, most widely-accepted religious tradition is in the geographic region where the native spent her or his formative years. Were Lilly writing in Istanbul in 1647 instead, the religion noted would likely have been Islam, if not Greek Orthodoxy (but that’s a whole other article). I’ll also draw a distinction here between spirituality and religiosity—a lazy one, but it’ll work for our purposes: I consider spirituality what’s happening on the inside and religiosity how those interior motions are expressed.

I’ll start this project using the charts of people whose religious journeys I know very well, with their kind permission. All individuals will be anonymous. Then, once I’ve gotten a few known delineations down, I’ll ask (likely on Twitter) for a number of individuals whose stories I don’t already know to submit their birth information so that we can test Lilly’s rules. For the purposes of this article, I’ll stick with a handful of charts I know very well (relatives and friends). This is not meant to be a formal research paper, but it’ll grow into that in time, for sure. In all of these examples I am using Dorothean triplicities, Egyptian terms, and Chaldean decans, and all houses are Placidus.

Chart One

spirituality chart 1This chart, which belongs to a relative, has several very interesting features as regards the question of spirituality and religiosity. We see immediately that there are no planets in the 9th house, but the 9th ruler, Mars, is highly dignified in Scorpio in the 3rd, notable because this is a fixed water sign (and we might expect “fixity” to figure prominently here). On Mars in the 3rd, Lilly writes, “Saturn or Mars in the 9th or 3rd, Direct, irradiated with the good aspect of the Fortunes, themselves occupying a fixed Signe, argue approved Piety,” which is to say, the native practices a spirituality or religiosity that is socially acceptable.

The 3rd ruler, Venus, is in Capricorn, not quite in the 6th house, but knowing this native I am going to choose to read Venus as being around the cusp of the 6th (Lilly does this sort of thing all the time). She also separates from the square of the 9th house cusp, “boxing in” the 9th. From these significators alone, I am going to judge that this is a person with a spiritual style that is highly attuned to the common people’s spirituality (3rd house) and who feels a duty to keep up appearances in matters of communication, yes, but also in terms of that core relationship to the “faith of our fathers” (3rd ruler Venus in 6 in Capricorn—whew!).

Meanwhile, Jupiter, the natural significator of spirituality, is both in detriment and peregrine immediately conjunct the ascendant, and in Virgo, this Jupiter is one which will allow the native to scrutinize her beliefs, despite the 9th ruler being highly dignified and in a fixed sign. Fixity of belief is an important element of this individual’s story, as we will see shortly. This Jupiter does not have all of the significations that Lilly notes would suggest the native being the opposite of a “good minded and religious” person, but this is still going to be a predominant theme for this individual’s spirituality. Also consider who it is that Jupiter disposes in this chart: the Moon, in Pisces, on the eighth cusp. Any sort of change or variation, or any kind of Moon-in-Pisces activity, is going to be a source of dread for this individual.

Of note also is that the cusp of the 3rd house is fairly close to Spica Virginis (23 Libra 50 as of this writing). Lilly writes “Jupiter, Venus or North Node in the 9th or 3rd, or with Spice Virgo, Signifie a religious party” (612). Though there are no planets conjunct Spica in this instance, we might speculate that house cusps conjunct prominent fixed stars—Spica in particular—can be telling secondary testimonies. It’s worth keeping in our back pocket, at least.

In sum, the spirituality of this person is going to be highly unlikely to change and will be keyed by-and-large to the socially acceptable practice of the common spirituality of her birth place, which will be practiced as much out of earnest belief as a sense of responsibility to social order and “keeping up appearances,” very much a post-war approach to religiosity that is unlikely to shift. However as the native ages, we might reasonably expect her to have periodic reevaluations of what is working and what is not in her faith and practice (and we might expect each first house profection year to bring this sort of change, so, 12, 24, 36, 48, etc. Jupiter being conjunct the ascendant—this also means that the native’s Jupiter returns will correspond with first house profections). With the ruler of the first house being Mercury in Capricorn, we might expect something along the lines of “opportunities to rearrange one’s mental furniture” rather than wholesale religious crises.

This individual was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition and is married to a minister in a mainline protestant denomination, which has formed a significant part of this person’s identity and lifestyle for the majority of her adult life (notice that Jupiter rules the 7th and is conjunct the ascendant). Without revealing too much of this person’s personal life, I will note that every twelve years she has encountered some type of change in relationship to spirituality as matters are examined and re-examined, notably during her 60th year, which was both a first house profection year and a Jupiter Return year, during which she encountered several crises of belief and expectation as she learned to live with her gay son. Fill in whatever blanks you like, but it is a happy ending (less of a rarity these days, thankfully).

Chart Two

spirituality chart 2aThe second chart is that of my husband. This time, we have another instance where we have no planets in the 9th (Pluto is within five degrees of the midheaven, so we read him in the 10th), yet the 9th ruler is in the 3rd, but it’s significantly different from the first chart because of the dignities involved. Lilly writes, “Saturn, Mars, South Node in the 9th or 3rd, in movable Signes, Jupiter being peregrine or in Detriment, Cadent, infected of the Infortunes, argue, the Native will not be constant in one Religion” (613). We’re not dealing with any of the malefics, but we are dealing with the benefic of the sect in detriment and ruling the 9th placed in the third. The 9th ruler here is Venus, and the 3rd ruler is Mars. At the very least, Mars has dignity by term and face, but Venus is in rotten shape altogether—debilitated and cadent, just about opposing the 9th cusp. She is not an accidental malefic but because of her condition she is not going to manifest as constructively as she would otherwise. I suspect that in matters of religiosity, the native feels as though he exists as an outsider among the “common religion,” and being in a cardinal sign, the ruler of the 9th is going to take pains to create their own ways to accomplish what they want to do in terms of the 9th house as regards philosophy and spirituality (as well as the 4th, which remains relevant later on).

We also have Jupiter debilitated but angular here ruling the 2nd and the 11th suggesting that opportunities for the native’s promised religious scrutiny will emerge in the context of partnership and will incorporate considerations of his own individual resources as well as the groups with whom he associates. Meanwhile, the Moon in Pisces is applying to the conjunction of the third ruler (and ruling the 6th—duty, labor, and illness), connecting 6th house ideas to the expression of the 3rd house ruler, who is doing the very best he can all things considered. Mars at least has a little bit of ability to manifest his natal promise here, unlike Venus, which will forever be a bit of an outsider in terms of spirituality and religion. The Sun rules the 7th and is placed in the 3rd, so we might suspect that this native’s partner has close and fixed ties to the “common religion.”

Side note: I wonder whether the religion vs spirituality axis might be distributed to the 3rd and the 9th, that is, the 3rd rules religion in terms of outward practice and the 9th rules spirituality in terms of one’s own philosophy. The jury is out on this one, I suppose.

A few words about my husband are in order, then: he grew up in a cult (the Church of Christ, not to be confused with the United Church of Christ) and religion has been a thorn in his side for several years—and yet, he’s taken me, a mainline protestant pastor and astrologian, as his husband. He was disowned by his CofC parents when he came out, and his mom even published a lovely blog post on our wedding day entitled “On Giving Your Son to the Devil.” Super fun!

We may readily see the 4th ruler Venus in detriment in Aries in 3 as signifying parents who utilize emotional manipulation tactics to attempt to get their son to see “the error of his ways,” so to speak, but remember that Venus is playing for him, too, so we can see how that’s not quite going to work. Were Venus in Taurus in 3 instead of in Aries, we would expect him never to have left the Church of Christ. As it stands now, he identifies most readily with Daoism, which is about as much of a Taurus Sun/Pisces Moon faith tradition as I can imagine. True to Venus in Aries fashion, my husband has created a support group for survivors of abusive forms of Christianity.

CHART THREE

spirituality chart 3This is the chart of a dear friend of mine who gave me permission to use his as an example as it proves a fantastic case study. Once again, we have nothing in the ninth house, but we have the ninth ruler in the 3rd. Moreover, we again have the 9th ruler in detriment and cadent. The difference in the plot though, here, is that the the 3rd ruler, Mercury, is combust the Sun in the 8th, with no dignity, and he’s not making a phase either. However, thematic in this chart is the fact that the dispositor of the 3rd ruler, Mars, also rules the 8th and is both highly dignified and angular. Jupiter must appeal to Mercury, who must appeal to Mars to accomplish their respective purposes, and Mars in Aries—namely, the ability to stand one’s ground and find their own way forward—has the ability to make things happen for this person as regards spirituality. We should also note that Mars applies very closely to the trine of the 9th and the sextile of the 3rd. Although Mars is the malefic contrary to sect, his dignity here leads me to believe that he will manifest constructively.

It would be irresponsible to neglect the fact that Jupiter also rules the midheaven and the ascendant, as well as being the natural significator of spirituality here. We see immediately that this native’s relationship to the “common religion” is a significant life theme in terms of their identity as well as their public perception. Lilly writes, “If Jupiter be peregrine, in his Fall or Detriment, and in a cadent house of the Figure, and afflicted of the malevolents, he notes the contrary” (612). Knowing this person, I am not prepared to say that a debilitated 9th ruler is an indicator of any kind of “spiritual apathy.”

Quite the contrary—the “outsider” factor of a house ruler in debility, as we saw with the previous chart, is something to keep in mind. In this instance, the native was a member of the Southern Baptist faith tradition and studied at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, but in his early 20s (around the time of his second Jupiter return) he underwent a personal transformation that caused him to reconsider how he related to the faith tradition of the surrounding environment—and Kentucky is decidedly a Bible-belt state, so, that’s the tradition under consideration here.

He eventually was ordained within the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a progressive family of faith in the Baptist tradition, and he has become an advocate for LGBTQ inclusion in the Church. To this point, Lilly’s note on Jupiter in the 3rd is notable: “But if Jupiter, Venus or North Node possesse the 9th or 3rd, the Native proves a good Christian, and a lover of Religion wherein trained up” (612). But all the same, we have Jupiter in a common sign on the 3rd in his detriment, so we see how there is a tension between devotion to the religion of the native’s upbringing and his need to find new expressions of the same. He is no longer a Southern Baptist, which has cost him some connections to major figures in his upbringing, but all the same, he has been able to find a path within the broader current of the religious tradition of his upbringing where he can find a place of rootedness.

I do want to speak about the placement and rulership of the Sun and Saturn as well, because both of them figure prominently not only into this individual’s spiritual and religious identities, but also into their professional life and sense of purpose.

This person is a clergy colleague of mine whose vocation has brought him to a position where he is working in hospital chaplaincy. He discerned this call while he was providing chaplaincy to inmates at a local prison. He is preparing to begin a training residency at a regional hospital. Notice that the 12th ruler is Saturn, who has natural rulership of places of confinement, viz., hospitals and prisons. Saturn is dignified and placed quite close to the midheaven in the 10th. Meanwhile, the native’s Sun is in Scorpio in the eighth, suggesting that he will be unafraid to plunge into deathly depths to do what it is that he has been called to do. Moreover, he has no problem putting haters in their place (Mars in the 1st).

So what?

From these three examples, we see that Lilly’s rules of judgment are on track, yet they must be extrapolated in instances where there are not specific instances that match the considerations he lists as primary in judgment. In those instances, we take the nature of the sign where the significators in question are placed.

I realize as I write this that all three of these examples have Pisces Moons and Jupiter in detriment, and all three of these examples are people for whom spirituality (a Jupiterian matter) have been thematically significant in their life. All the same, we see how these respective Pisces Moons have transmitted the powers of the superior planets in different fashions, for the powers of those planets were in each instance in different situations, and the house rulerships were different as well.

There remains much more work to do, and I’m excited to continue engaging therein—a number of my readers have submitted their chart data for inclusion in this case study. If you’d like to participate, get in touch! I’m offering a 10% discount on any service to anyone who submits their data for inclusion in the study.