The Generosity of the Archetypes
When things feel chaotic and confusing, it can be helpful to return to basic foundations. In astrology, foundations are found in the planets themselves, which are the 9 root energies from which our entire reality derives. These energetic qualities are points of orientation much like a fable or myth can be orienting on an almost subconscious level.
This is because, whether or not you are aware of it, you are part of the plot. You—or some remote part of your mind—can locate yourself inside the archetype in the same way that you might identify yourself with a character in a story, or even inside the sentiment evoked from a particular plot twist. By recognizing the presence of an archetype—either in yourself or in the world around you, you can begin to locate yourself inside a story.
Many modern-ish minds (Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, among many others) have done a remarkable job of detailing the guiding power of story and the almost medicinal qualities of myth. It is becoming obvious that humans actually require story—it seems to satisfy some meaning-making capacity in us that simply cannot survive the gigantic vacuity of sterile rationality.
But a story is more than a fictitious series of events transcribed onto a page and read to children before bed. Stories are wound up into every nook and cranny of our waking lives, in the same way that archetypes are not a static idea frozen in time and discussed in new-age college classrooms, but living principles that actually inhabit us just as the planets do.
Archetypes are also stories—that is to say: patterned energies that can be recognized, with practice, and which can alert us to the presence of the myriad of qualities related to that archetype and inform us as to the presence of concomitant energies and events of that archetype. Understanding these root energies allows us to navigate some of the less-rational areas of our lives in the same way that myth can—through the evocation of the “spiritual potentialities of human life,”—to paraphrase Joseph Campbell. Any one archetype can constellate its own map of the moment, alerting us to other features of that archetype.
An astrological example: if you are somehow under the grip of Saturn (through dasha, Sade sati transit, or otherwise) then you may experience loss, grief or separation as a prominent feature of your life. You may actually be able to identify an almost physical weight that inhabits you as a result of Saturn’s influence. If you can understand that “this is what Saturn feels like” you can separate yourself from the immediacy of his impact, take a step back from your own experience and see the various events and qualities of consciousness in your life at the moment that are archetypally “Saturn.” These things are no longer disparate, meaningless events, but the hand of Saturn teaching responsibility, limitation and ultimately non-attachment. You can then also know that the medicine for the darkness of Saturn is the light of the Sun, and can introduce more solar energy into your life: making sure to wake up with or before the Sun, illuminate your environment as much as possible and think bright thoughts.
Planetary archetypes can be helpful in collective ways, too, as they indicate ‘changes in the air’ that are felt across the population and foretell patterned changes.
These archetypal understandings tap us into the instinctual intelligence acquired over the millennia of human history in our adaptation to Nature and life. Jung’s belief was that archetypes are born from the collective unconscious, which is a gigantic storehouse of information gleaned at the interface of humans and nature over time. It is the instruction manual for how to be an actual human, as I see it. And its treasures are largely untapped in an age when hyper-rationality blocks the gateway to these more fluid, less concrete ‘knowings.’
Archetypes are, essentially, Nature’s intelligence as it is communicated to and through the human mind and imagination. Without an understanding of archetype, life can feel like a series of disparate and meaningless experiences that leave us with a numbing feeling of spiritual vacancy. Archetypal intervention is precisely the type of help we need at the moment.
Accessing this storehouse of information contained in archetype requires going beyond the rational and opening up into the imaginal realm of experience. Please take care here to watch how quickly your mind associates ‘imaginal’ with ‘fake.’ Imagination is the mind’s capacity to open itself to possibilities of experience which have not yet arrived. The Western Mind may associate imagination with child’s play, but any real artist or change-maker knows that it is a source of vitality and the womb of creativity.
There are some very substantial mythologies and archetypes inhabiting this historical moment. The political and socio-cultural stage can feel crazy-making if the events it produces are not put into their storied context. Even some basic mythological parallels can be incredibly relieving, and are necessary if what Joseph Campbell believed is true: that myths and archetypal motifs emerging from the subconscious field to play out in human experience are mirrors which reflect what a given culture does not want to see about itself.
The planets are archetypal energies which we all align with in different ways depending on their position in the sky at our moment of birth. They map out the story we move through that is our life, and constellate certain patterns that shape us against their unique tensions. Our ability to adapt to these influences and accept the challenges we are dealt will determine, to a large extent, how well we are able to inhabit our own lives. The more firmly grounded we are in who we are supposed to be (based on our nature) the less rattled we will be by the turbulence of the moment and the more capable we will be of creatively incorporating its challenges into our own becoming.
Astrology can be extremely helpful in this department: describing the archetypal uniqueness you are meant to inhabit (configuration of planets in your chart), the places and times (planetary periods, aspects and transits) you are likely to be pulled astray from your own nature, and methods (remedial measures) for getting back on track.
This is the generosity of the archetypes: that they allowed themselves to be perceived as the patterned-energies that they are, so that humans might map out some meaning in their existence and tune their senses to the complex weave of Nature’s interconnected intelligence AND realize themselves as a part of all this beauty.
