Читать книгу Astrology: The only introduction you’ll ever need - Charles Harvey - Страница 29

‘In the beginning was the Word.’

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN, OPENING WORDS

Astrology describes the ebb and flow of the primary, divine, creative ‘ideas’, the ‘mind stuff’ which shapes and informs all of life and consciousness. For everything in the cosmos is essentially ‘mind stuff’. All around us we see matter which is embodying particular ideas. Whether we are looking at a book or a flower, we are looking at the effect of ideas.

We can readily see this with human creativity. From making a dress to building a house, a railway or a computer game, each project starts with an idea in someone’s mind. This idea is then translated into some kind of raw material. The materials are always vitally important to the end product, but nevertheless they are secondary to the idea. It is always the idea that in-forms the materials, and never the other way round. Destroy every last car in the world and the idea of a car is sufficient to create a new one. No amount of raw materials will ever create a car without the concept. And the creative, in-forming power of ideas equally applies in nature. A rose starts life as an idea written in genetic code. The DNA code then in-forms the raw materials of earth and water and sunshine and, voila! You have a rose bush.

The same is true in human lives: the thing we want to make, that finished creation visualized in the mind, is always the last thing to be manifested. Anyone who has done any creative cooking knows that the finest meal, whilst being prepared, generates a great deal of apparent chaos as raw materials are chosen, peeled, chopped, cooked, mixed with herbs, and so on. Creation is messy, and we have to keep our gaze – the mind’s eye focused – on that final creation, not to mention the recipe, if we are to believe that all the parts will come together in the right way.

Our personal lives can seem very chaotic, too, if we cannot see the underlying plot. This is what astrology provides – a sense of the plot. The birth chart, as John Addey suggested, is a kind of ‘contract with time and space’; and referring to the contract to remind ourselves of the overall game plan can help us to turn chaos into cosmos. Through studying the birth chart, we find out that what feels like chaos is really overemphasis or imbalance in certain areas – too much water (emotionality), too little earth (not enough practicality), an angular Mars (fullsteam ahead all the time) – and we then are in a position to make more informed choices which further the plot intelligently. Another analogy is the picture on a packet of seeds: it helps to know ourselves from the horoscope’s view of wholeness – are we a delicate fritillary, or a ceanotha which doesn’t like too much sun, or a camellia that hates lime, or a hardy honeysuckle that is happy anywhere? By knowing what suits us we can better grow and flourish and actualize our potential.

Astrology is an algebra, a symbolic language which enables us to read the contract, understand the plot, and imaginatively view that unique picture on the packet of seeds which is our life. By engaging imaginatively with the gods within us – the miniature cosmos – we are better equipped to inform the ‘matter’ of our lives, to grow up and blossom in the way that is best for us. In an essay entitled ‘Civilization’, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) expressed a sentiment very close to the idea that astrology encourages. He wrote:

Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labour, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements … If we can thus ride in Olympian chariots by putting our works in the path of the celestial circuits, we can harness also evil agents, the powers of darkness, and force them to serve against their will the ends of wisdom and virtue.