Management of Measurement Constructs

The Value of Events

One of my clients last week, in an update session, looked me straight in the eye and said grimly, “I lost $800,000 in the ENRON situation.” –Such a situation, unfortunately for us astrologers, is like a plane crash or prisoner-of-war experience: accidents in time occur and may issue into vulnerabilities in the personal horoscope, but there is no signal that will say, “You will lose your life in an airplane crash or your fortune in a stock market scandal.” In great degree, these occurrences are out of the individual’s hands; he or she may indeed be exposed to such difficulties, but it is a very difficult point of theory and practice in astrology.

Most significant for our update consultation was my client’s next sentence, “but I made up about half that, with a stock increasing about six times its value …. Etc.” –My client was indomitable in the light of crushing initial loss.

“Wow!” was about all I could say, until I knew more. And then, he added, “But Noel, the curious thing here is that when ENRON crashed, I really didn’t feel it that way. I was amazed at how calm and collected I was. I went on to get myself out of the jam, and it’s looking good.” [And his horoscope looked so incredibly successful for the next two years!]

The point is that that event for him had one value, and for someone else, it would have another value.

To put it theoretically: no event has a value until one gives it value.

My client was natally equipped to stay high above and out in front of difficulties: his Venus-Jupiter-Moon conjunction (Venus ruling the 2nd) is exactly upon his Midheaven, and his Sun in Leo is peregrine! The dissociation of the Sun was insulation against deep emotional involvement.

In discussing this case with another astrologer, she offered, “Well, $800,000 loss is really nothing is you’ve got eight million!” –And she’s right: the relativity is very important. How do events fit into the scheme of our life at our level of life.

Just see how novice astrologers panic when they see tr Saturn coming to their Midheaven or Ascendant; tr Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto similarly. This attitude reveals the basic value depletion or negative disposition within their life development. –We must find that suggestion within the horoscope, discuss it with the client (whether or not he/she knows any astrology), see from where it comes, and change the view into more far-sighted energy.

I have had many, many clients who instinctively evaluate occurrences in their life severely negatively … so much so that people in conversation with them feel sorry, are disappointed, even when the event is clearly supportive, successful!!! It is uncanny how astrology can trace this back, say through the rulers of the 10th and the 3rd and their possible interaction, etc., to emulation of the father. “How did your father see life and its happenings?

What a misuse of emotion.

I remember being at a party in Germany with a client and her doctor husband. A phone call came to the party from the woman’s babysitter at home. My client called her husband and me aside into a quite room, and announced that she had just learned that her mother had been found hanging in suicide in New York.

There was not one murmur of emotion in that telling, and neither her husband nor I said a word. My client then added, “Well, I guess that’s the best thing that has happened to me in a long time!”

My client’s values given to that event were conditioned by the extraordinarily depleting relationship she had had with her mother for 40 years! She had long learned to be honest about the situation. –And the astrologer’s point of view, in its objectivity, can not be emotionally responsive, perfunctorily reflecting societal value judgements.

This is what the psychiatrist practices when, in response to the telling of an event by the client, he or she then asks, “And what do you feel about that?”

The astrologer can do the same. Much is revealed, and creative listening places the event value judgement significantly within the known guidelines of the individual’s horoscope. –I particularly appreciate the power of the statement, “And what do you think you have brought forward from this event?”

A recent client has almost a complete planetary orientation to the East (defensive posture). Venus, ruler of the 2nd is conjoined with Pluto and squared by Mars (self-worth trauma); Mercury, ruler of the Ascendant, is squared by Neptune (identity confusion, relationship anxiety, with Neptune ruling the 7th). The cause within the whole complex was clearly Saturn retrograde in Capricorn.

With transiting Uranus-Pluto on his Ascendant, his alcoholic father left the family and then died.

My client successively had two major, very close friendships; each male died, was taken away. Clearly abandonment issues were paramount and were transferred into the male relationships he had.

My client is in therapy and doing very, very well. –I said, so simply, “Let’s talk about your therapist and his probably father symbolism for you.”

He replied, “No … my therapist is a woman.”

I said, without missing a beat, “Let’s talk about your therapist and her probable father symbolism for you.”

And my client sat there in silence for a moment, and then said, “Wow! What an interesting idea. You know, all this is starting to come together. Thank you for that!”

We talked about when he would finish therapy, i.e., when he could let his father go.

–So our evaluations of relationships, our evaluations of events are all relative and given value by the individual within the matrix of personal development. There can be no intrusion by the astrologer with regard to evaluation. The astrologer leads the client to clearer, more supportive evaluation, sometimes out of the mainstream of routinized value judgement in the life, which may be keeping growth stifled, relationships at bay, etc..