Soul Ascent

The idea, desire and methodology of the ascent of the soul
has been a predominant, ever-present theme in the thinking
of humanity. From the Egyptian Pyramid text of the Old Kingdom
(2650 – 2152 BCE) we see some of the first writings where the
sky is considered to be divine and the soul, after death, moving
upwards towards a perfect, immortal life.

I fly from you, oh men,
I am not for the earth.
I am for the sky.
I have soared to the sky as a heaven.
I have kissed the sky as a falcon.
I am the essence of a god,
The son of a god.
Behold the faithful and loving Osiris
Has come as the stars of Orion, the Beautiful One
I have come that I may glorify Orion.
My soul is a star of gold
And with him
I will traverse the sky forever. (Pyramid text )

Thousands of years later, Plato (c. 427–c. 347 BC) attempts
to describe the soul’s ascent in The Republic in which he suggests
that we live in a cave but that there is a brighter light outside
which he defines as the World Soul, a great collective concept
to which we all aspire or seek. Later the neo-Platonist, Plotinus
Bc. 205 – 270) expands Plato's thinking by describing the soul
in his Enneads when he talks of the moment of the heavens as
being reflected in our own individual souls. He states that our
personal souls have been captured and held down “by the clay it
bears with it” while all the time “even in us the Spirit which
dwells with the Soul does thus circle about the divinity.
For since God is omnipresent, the Soul desiring perfect
union must take the circular course: God is not stationed.”
[Enneads, ii, 2]

Here Plotinus, like the earlier Egyptians, links the soul directly
to the moment of the heavens and notes that our own individual
souls mirror this moment in its desire to rejoin with the divine.
These ideas have been carried through the ages but in twentieth
century astrology there is little evidence of this long sky/earth/soul
debate and the idea of soul as an entity has been defined in a more
Jungian manner with the soul considered to be an archetype.
This is described by James Hillman as “a perspective rather than
a substance, a viewpoint toward things rather than a thing itself. . . .”
[1] and thus contained within an astrological horoscope, like
any other archetype, as an expression of the combination of
planets, houses and signs.

But is this the only astrological approach to the question of soul?
Is there any merit left in the ideas of the Egyptian ascent to the stars,
and Plotinus' linking of the moment of the heaven and the stars to
the divine to which we aspire?

If your astrology is focused solely on the horoscope, you may well
answer in the negative. However, if you are working with visual
astrology, then you may have a vastly different approach to this
question.


When we work with the dome of the starry sky we allow all the
nuances of the visual phenomena of the sky to come into play in our
astrological thinking. This methodology allows us to return to the
earlier approaches to this important question of the Egyptians and
of Plotinus. When we actually look at the sky it becomes obvious that,
for the location of your birth, some stars are circumpolar, meaning
they never set and are visible for the whole year.
To the Egyptians such stars were deemed to be immortal and god-like
if not gods themselves for they never travelled below the earth to
the Underworld. However, sometimes one of these stars left the
realm of the gods and came down to earth to spend time walking
amongst the mortals.
After a set period of days, this star would then leave the earth and
return to the realm of the immortals. As it joined the earthy realms
of the mortals, it becomes known as the Heliacal Setting star,
meaning that it is seen to be setting on the western horizon just
before sunrise.

Now there are many philosophical and theological implications
of a star’s ability to move from the realm of the gods to the realm
of humankind and then, after a time of “mortality”, ascend back to
the gods. One of these implications is the idea of a saviour god who
walks amongst us. However, let us focus on the implications which
occur on a personal level.

Salvation in a Star

If you have your own parans from Starlight (you can get them for
free by visiting www.Zyntara.com - also see note at end of Newsletter)
then have a look at your Heliacal Setting Star [found at the top of
the paran printout listed just below the Heliacal Rising Star].
This star is the star which at the time of your birth was the
god-like star walking upon the mortal earth. It is, in effect, the
star whose mythology is reflective of your own sense of how you
can reach for the divine, what you consider is your “higher” being, or
“higher” purpose in life and what you hold sacred in your life.
In short, this star's mythology describes what you consider to
be the nature of the pathway to your own salvation.

Now look to see if you have any stars listed as Curtailed Passage
[this will be in red ink if you have a colour printer and is listed
immediately after the star’s meaning]. Stars listed as Curtailed
Passage are stars that, during the course of the year, descend and
become the Heliacal Setting Star but at the time of your birth
they are still totally in the realm of the immortals. Such stars when
in paran to your natal planets act like intermediaries between your
mortal world and your divine sense of being. They are the demi-gods
or “saints” who show you the way to ascend to the gods. They act as
role models and give you inspiration on the journey of your personal
ascension, the ways and means towards the divine that you seek.
Here are a few examples.

Mohandas K Gandhi, 2 October, 1869, Porbander, India.

With his great personal dignity and total allegiance to non-violence,
respect and love for others, Gandhi was a force so strong it overthrew
British rule in India and gave his beloved nation independence.
His guiding principal was love not violence, captured in many of
his quotes, one of which is as follows:

"Nonviolence and cowardice are contradictory terms.
Nonviolence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice.
Nonviolence springs from love, cowardice from hate.
Nonviolence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering.
Perfect nonviolence is the highest bravery.
Nonviolent conduct is never demoralizing, cowardice always is."

By his uncompromising non-violent approach, Gandhi eventually won
the hearts of India, as well as the world. These are the stars from
Gandhi’s chart that are his link to the divine
(taken from Starlight's paran printout).

HELIACAL SETTING STAR
Alderamin - Setting 09 mins 17 secs before Sunrise -
To use strength and dignity as the guiding principles of your life

PARANS (to planets)
Schedar as Moon is Setting orb 00 mins 39 secs -
A noble, religious or spiritual soul - Curtailed passage
Schedar as Sun is Culminating orb 00 mins 20 secs -
To have an honourable, or believable, charisma - Curtailed passage
Cepheus, the King, the constellations that contains Alderamin
(image from Starlight)

Alderamin is the main star of Cepheus, the King, and in Starlight
some of the delineation of this star are:
Gentle power, passive power. With this star in your chart, your
skills are to be strongly focused but not aggressive.
The greatest benefits and success will come by gentle determination
rather than dramatic action.
However, as the Heliacal Setting Star, this great and ancient king
star is linked with how Gandhi reaches for, or achieves what he believes
to be his highest purpose.
For Gandhi, strength and dignity is the pathway to his personal
salvation, a pathway he also saw as the salvation of India.

Linked to this is another star which is in a phase of Curtailed
passage and this is Schedar, the main star of Cassiopeia, the Queen.
In Gandhi’s parans it is linked with both his natal Sun and Moon.
In Starlight some of the delineations of this star are:

This star is the archetypal symbol of the queen. A natural ability
to command respect, wisdom… This star demands dignity and
rules by the power of respectability and honour.
With it in your chart you can rely on your desire to always function
with propriety, to treat others as you would like to be treated,
to know that your dignity is the source of your power.

To have Schedar in a phase of Curtailed Passage and linked with
both luminaries is a strong stellar emphasis on honour as a key
to a person's chosen pathway towards their own spiritual fulfilment.
So for Gandhi, to travel the path with honour is one of his key
principles. These stars then have to work in partnership with Gandhi's
natal chart but we can clearly see that a great deal of information can be gained by
considering the stars that link Gandhi to the realm of the gods.

In contrast to the above example is:

Florence Nightingale - 12 May 1820, Florence, Italy 43N46, 11E15.

Florence Nightingale was the woman who became known as the
“Lady with the Lamp” during the Crimea War (1854 - 56).
Her Heliacal Setting star is Vindemiatrix, the great star in Virgo
that collates and organises. After the war, where she set new
standards in nursing, she devoted her life to reforming the nursing
profession by developing new techniques of statistical analysis to
prove her points and push through reforms. She kept records and
analysed these records, proving to the military that care and
cleanliness actually saved lives.

HELIACAL SETTING STAR
Vindemiatrix - Setting 22 mins 27 secs before Sunrise -
A collector, a person who seeks to complete things
PARANS
Arcturus as Saturn is Setting orb 01 mins 05 secs -
The engineer, the medical researcher, the explorer - the one
who finds new pathways - Curtailed passage Vega as Saturn is
Rising orb 00 mins 38 secs - A dominating person who can hold
onto power - Curtailed passage Vega as Venus is On Nadir orb
01 mins 37 secs - The artist, visionary; ideas on social order -
Curtailed passage

She also had two stars that were in a phase of Curtailed Passage
while being in paran to her natal planets. The first is Arcturus
which is the main star of Bootes, the great pathfinder, and some
of the meanings as listed in Starlight are:

"This is the star in the northern skies which bridges the lands between
the hunter-gatherer nomad and the herder-cultivator-ploughman
villager. Thus Arcturus embodies the symbolism of guarding,
learning, teaching, leading. One who can lead the way, one who has
the vision or the spirit to take the first step. ...
This star acts as a role model, a personal mentor, so now she not
only has to collate and develop new idea on nursing but now she
must teach it to others."

Florence also has Vega in curtailed passage and in paran to two planets.
This is a star of charisma or persuasion and it is the main star of the
Lyra, the constellation which is symbolic of the magic of music, so it
indicates her personal ability to convince others to follow her chosen
pathway.

Researching the theme

I like to use Starlight to scan for stars in a particular phase in a
person’s chart as I find this a good technique for getting the
“feel” for a specific star/planet/phase configuration. For example,
other people who had Arcturus, the great path finding star, in
paran with their natal Saturn while also being in a phase of Curtailed
Passage were:

Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, 2 April 1834 NS 12:00 LMT -00:29:28 Colmar,
France 48°N05' 07°E22' Bartholdi was the French sculptor of the Statue
of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Sir Hans Sloane, 16 April 1606 NS 12:00 LMT +00:22:52 Killyleagh,
United Kingdom 54°N24' 05°W43' Sloane was a physician and naturalist
whose collection of manuscripts, curiosities, specimens and books
formed the basis for the British Museum. He studied medicine and
obtained his degree in 1683. He travelled widely and while in Jamaica
collected more than 800 new species of plants that were published
in a catalogue in 1696

V.I. Lenin, 21 April 1870 20:46:24 UT +00:00 Simbirsk, Russia
54°N20' 48°E24' , founder of a new pathway for Russia.

These are simple examples which start to give us insights into
the role that the Heliacal Setting Star and stars in a phase of
Curtailed Passage can play in giving us understanding of how
we personally seek our salvation, how we personally reach
out for the divine. Such stars, when married to the meanings
of the planets, reveal deep principles in our lives, the things in
which we believe, the way we want to live, the deep spiritual
goals that we seek to fulfill.

By ignoring star phases astrology has become blind to this
ancient and mystical journey that is played out in each of our
own charts - the ascent and descend of the soul and how we
reach up and touch the divine.

[1] Hillman, James (1975). Re-visioning Psychology. New York: Harper and Row.