Creative Connections & Client CommunicationsThe Art of Connections

Remember the jokes about “why did the chicken cross the road?” –“To get to the other side!”? The key word here to help this joke delight a youngster is the word “why.”

I think that astrology is usually too smug to ask the question why; we presume that astrology is the answer, and that we have to go no further. The conventional (old-time) wisdom was that planets did things, and that was that. If we learned all the descriptive possibilities, we’d be able to wrap somebody up in astrological jargon and put him or her on the shelf of destiny!

Well, we know that planets do not do anything; that people do things; and that the planets are guides to understanding the process; they are witnesses of development.

The question “why” is all-important in Counseling. For example, WHY is the Ascendant always, always, always square to the 4th-10th axis? The square is maximum tension. Why is it there?

If it’s there, it’s supposed to be there, somehow, in the omniscient nature of things, in the squaring of the circle. This says that there is self-development chiefly through and in terms of developmental tension with our parents. –Is anyone free of this truth in development?

So it becomes a matter of degree: how much tension was there and how was it assimilated into the system that becomes the personality, that conditions behavior. That conditioning becomes the Self.

We see this matrix of developmental tension through significators, the planets ruling the cusp of a House or a major planet screaming within the particular House. The rulers of the 4th and 10th Houses are the significators of the parental axis. If they are under high developmental tension somewhere in the horoscope,we must talk with our client about the parental situation in the early homelife.

For example, in my own horoscope Neptune rules the 10 and is in the 4th. Neptune in the 4th is a parental significator and it is opposed by Saturn in the 10th (an echo of the parental tension that is unfolding). Mercury, the ruler of the 4th, is another parental significator and it is opposed by Pluto and that axis is squared by Mars, elsewhere in the horoscope.

So, BOTH parental significators are under high tension. The simple Solar Arc of the Midheaven into the Saturn-Neptune opposition can usually tell us when the tension probably was initially formed or was at it highest peak in my consciousness, growing up. That happened to be 10 degrees away, i.e., 10 years of age (MC at 7 Pisces to SAturn at 17 Pisces). That happened to be when my father abandoned my mother and me, never to return. That was that, and THAT was an important consideration in my development.

Another example: we know that the 9th House is the House where we see education, among other dimensions of life experience. If the significator of the 9th House is under heavy developmental tension, almost invariably, in the United States culture, we will see that the education of the client was interrupted! –This is very important for concerns of social and professional mobility, level in life, etc. It is drmatically important if, for example, the Moon is in Sagittarius (the reigning need to have one’s opinions respected): the credentialization will be lacking without the college experience, authority will be undermined, the opinions won’t have the impact they should have, adjustment behaviors will enter the picture, etc.

WHY –there’s the key question again– WHY was the education interrupted? The chances are exceedingly high that it was interrupted at age 17 or 18, by a precipitous marriage, which usually fails shortly thereafter.

WHY was there a precipitous marriage (look for Arcs and transits at that time and you can almost always name the month the college experience was never presented or was aborted, etc.)? To escape from the home? To feel loved and wanted (because one didn’t feel loved or wanted at home)?

The WHYs here lead us deeper and deeper into developmental concerns. A personality profile emerges. A discussion with the client is enriched.

So when we make a deduction or have an inkling about a personality dimension, we must ask ourselves WHY is that so. Then we check further around in the horoscope, always building on a causal, interrelational network of concerns, creating a scenario of development just as a playwrite does.

In this way, our deductions bring the parts of a personality together holistically. And all this is reflected in a rich, meaningful conversation with our client.