Management of Measurement Constructs
The Importance of Process
When someone helps you professionally to clean house, you tell them how you would like them to do it. You point out this and that and you share certain techniques that will do the job well. It’s your process and you know best; you’ve been using that cleaning process for 20, 30, 40 years! –If the cleaner doesn’t follow the procedure, you’ll find things wrong with the end product and you’ll be dissatisfied.
In the car wash: watch how every car is washed the same way, in the same sequence.. This process supports efficiency; it’s reliable.
If you have read my book Noel Tyl’s Guide to Astrological Consultation, you’ll be well aware of process; each of the five big case studies proceeds step of observational-step similarly. What is different is the evolvement of analysis through the process; the process supports the analysis.
Can you write down right now four, maybe five, observational steps that, in continuity 1 to 6, make up your Process?
Think about that. Can you actually do that: defining six chapter headings in your own book horoscope analysis.
If you can’t, or if the Process is vague or confused one step to the next, then you are making life and astrology very difficult for yourself! You are swimming in insecurity; feel it?
Recently I watched an astrology teacher present three horoscopes –supposedly in quick, crisp fashion– to a group of students. It was a hit-or-miss approach; no process was present. What started things off in each horocope were one or two things that had caught the teacher’s eye, that he knew well, or was a favorite from cases past. No orientation was clear.
The reasonability of Process . My orientation For me, Hemisphere Emphasis is the crucial first step of analytical awareness, of appreciation for the person on his or her path of becoming. [See “Analytical Techniques” Archives immediately below the current essay; July 15, 1999; see Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology, page 5-34; TYLMasterwork.com DVD #1]
If that orientation –usually in the Hemisphere accentuated by the absence of retrograde planets and more, explained in the texts; we will without doubt establish the person’s life-development orientation. To the East: defensiveness, withdrawal; to the West, giving oneself away to others; South, vulnerability to exploitation, being taken advantage of, even being victimized; and North, unfinished business in the early home.
Each of these orientations is emphatic, clear-cut. Each orientation permeates everything else you deduce in the horoscope, I.e., the next steps in the Process.
2. The Sun-Moon blend. Within Hemisphere orientation, how will the Sun shine, focused as it is on the reigning Need symbolism of the Moon –Oh my goodness, how important is that? Wow!!
Look at Barack Obama’s horoscope [ August 4, 1961 at 7:24 PM in Honolulu HI]. There is a startlingly dramatic western hemisphere emphasis. IMMEDIATELY you know the altruism, the dedication to others, the eagerness to be supportive. The the first overlay upon this deduction is the Sun-Moon blend: radiant ego strength and assumption of leadership to be informed, entertaining, articulate, intense (see S&C, pages 65-103; DVD #1).
In this first three-second overview of the horoscope, you know an enormous amount!
3. The third step in my Process, is to seek out special key occurrences of planets, working with the phenomenological discoveries I made some 35 years ago and have championed ever since: Saturn retrograde, involvement strongly of the Lunar Nodal Axis, and any special focus on defense mechanisms like a Grand Trine or idealism.
With Obama, we see instantly within the Process –not beginning it, but taking position within it– Saturn-retrograde referring to the father complex, my findings that have entered our literature securely. We see the Nodal axis configurated with the Moon, and this is the dominant influence of the mother. Then we note there is no Grand Trine and there is only a smattering of idealization (the Neptune square with the Sun; no Sun-Mercury-Venus involvements) .all covered in S&C and in DVD #1.
All of this can be seen at a glance from the aspect grid.
In the first ten seconds of looking at this horoscope we see a wide-open giving man, enormously influenced in his development –not by his father– but by his mother; sure, confident, informed, persuasive, hoping for the best at all times; caring for others to the nth degree (Venus in Cancer on the Aries Point).
4. Then, for the fourth step, we note the aspect tension points in the horoscope and pursue analysis of the Houses ruled by the planets under tension (S&C pages 225-270; DVD #2 and 3).
For example: Obama’s Jupiter, ruler of his 11th House (the need for love) is under high tension (through conjunction) with Saturn-Rx. The fractured, diffused father relationship left Obama with a giant need for approval and love. He would earn it [strong Jupiter-Saturn contacts usually always suggest the focus of purpose in the life]. His is echoed by Uranus square to the Midhaven and Saturn quindecile to the Sun. –We note that the Sun rules the 7th.. The developmental tension point focus on public relationship for fulfillment.
The Pluto tension with the Moon is always a mother measure of intensity. –It’s like a playground see-saw: when one end is down (Sat-rx) the other is up (Uranus, MH-Node; Pluto-Moon).
5. The fifth step is to get a little fancy, perhaps with an initial vocational profile outline (DVD 7; see Tyl- Vocations) . not necessary here.
6. The 6th step at your desk is to make some arc projections to punctuate development within time, within the embrace of Hemisphere emphasis to future time.
For example: What about the major change year at 11 (Uranus=Pluto), then the shining time of 13 with Sun=Uranus? What about Age 17, with Saturn=Sun and Mercury=Asc; what about the bewilderment and fall back at 20 with Neptune=MH? –There are many more time-points ready for your eye (see DVD #4), but these few are enough to make our point; they are immediately visible in the horoscope. And then, the polish is applying transits into the periods marked by arcs and finding a month or two that will guide quite a discussion.
–Again, the point is, we have followed a Process. The next horoscope would proceed similarly. Oh my! The confidence laid down by process helps you shine.
Build your Process.