Welcome to Esoteric Astrology with Bonnie Wells

In assessing a patient's condition, Oriental medicine practitioners listen to the pulse. They do not take the pulse: they receive it, "hearing" the patient's body as it speaks to them through the textures, rhythms and patterns of the beat. Within that paradigm, the body is viewed as a dense manifestation of the mind, capable of communicating the totality of individual experience to the sensitive listener; the entire history of a human being is carried in and communicated by the pulse. A centered, fully present practitioner can interpret the signals encoded in the pulse, determining thereby what the body needs in order to be in harmony. The pulse expresses what is true and essential about a person in every moment, and keenly honed perception is required if the practitioner is to fully and accurately discern its message. Students of Oriental medicine (specifically traditional Chinese and Japanese systems, with which I am most familiar) often express confusion as to whether the pulse they feel is the patient's, or their own; the wise teacher answers that they are identical, for there is but one pulse, perpetually disclosing the essence of the One Life in Whom we live and move and have our being.

So it is with astrology. Through its symbols and signs, we learn to hear the macrocosmic pulse reverberating within each of us. Every moment is unique and unrepeatable, a differentiated aspect of universal energy expressed as substance. In our solar system, force and essence coalesce in the body of the Solar Logos, whose physical/etheric heart center is the Sun. The logoic heartbeat entrains all forms to its cadence, each form acting as a distinctive vibrational "filter" whose qualities and characteristics shape its destiny: cause becomes effect and effect becomes cause. That is the dance of life, expressed in the cycles of heavenly bodies whose collective pulse elicits and responds to the leaps of our own -- deep calls to deep. At its core, this is the process and poetry of astrology; it is the pulse we seek to hear, speaking to us through the resonant symbols of every birthchart.

Brought face-to-face with the universe in each nativity, how can we not feel awed? Herein lies the reason why the astrological community, for all its intellectual sophistication, is at base a priesthood, and why attempts to locate astrology entirely within a statistical framework are doomed to fail. Celestial bodies and points in space cannot be separated from the individualized microcosmic beings who receive and reflect, and in turn affect, universal energies. The fact is that, while archetypal categories of experience organize our awareness, nothing ever means exactly the same thing twice. Astrological "cookbooks" are useful insofar as they help to identify archetypal themes, but their contents are abstractions. At the level of meaning, there is no such thing as Saturn in Virgo or Moon in Taurus. Even within a single birthchart, the messages of planets and points are fluid; the significance of every horoscopic factor is inseparable from its environment and (most importantly) the person who "has" it. The chart describes someone and alerts the astrologer to archetypal possibilities, but the horoscope is not the person. That is why esoteric astrology embraces an open-minded, intuitive approach to the birthchart; and, since esotericism unfolds largely by way of analogy, it might be useful to view astrology through the lens of a resonant discipline.

Synthesis of information, which is the bedrock of successful astrological interpretation, by definition cannot occur in a vacuum: what is required is a whole person seeking to understand another via the cosmic relationships that connect us all. This is identical to the approach taken by the Oriental medicine practitioner, who learns the characteristics and purposes of the body's meridians or energy channels, and then studies how they function in relation to each other, their associated organs and elements in moving energy (variously known as ch'i, ki, prana and vital force) through the body. In fact, Oriental medicine and astrology are expressions of the same paradigm and philosophy, which is that Earth is the physical counterpart of Heaven, and form (from the subtlest to the most dense) expresses spiritual ideas and recapitulates divine processes. All levels of form demonstrate the unity of God and Creation. That primary oneness stands behind healing, magic and all systems of correspondence and analogy. Astrology is chief among the latter, figuring prominently in historical approaches to health and ritual. Oriental medicine has maintained its essence as a cosmology encompassing planets, elements, gems, colours, textures, shapes, tastes, smells, etc.; it is not a collection of techniques, but a way of understanding relationships between spirit and form. Its aim is thus identical with astrology's, and we can deepen our astrological understanding through an appreciation of how these fields are linked in thought and practice.

While all life is One Life, there exist within that unity infinite levels of differentiation and combination. This is because (as a primary esoteric postulate states) energy follows thought. The intention of Spirit is to meet a universal need through a form specifically designed for that purpose; toward that end, energy (Divine consciousness) precipitates and condenses as a physical body. Every atom, cell and molecule of that form participate holographically in Spirit's plan to fullfil Itself in a certain way. A solar system is the appearance or manifestation of an overarching spiritual idea which esotericists often refer to as the Plan. This is akin to the Tao or Path of traditional Chinese philosophy (which includes the field of medicine). All forms participate in the Tao and represent permutations and combinations of yin and yang, the two qualities which undergird manifestation. This idea will be familiar to students of metaphysics who seek to understand duality as the basis of form life, a process some esotericists refer to as Fire by Friction. In both esoteric and exoteric astrology (which categories themselves express a certain level of duality), all planets, points, signs and aspects embrace every possibility of expression within a spectrum bounded on either end by archetypal qualities human beings have called positive and negative, masculine and feminine, etc. Yin and yang are in a perpetual state of flux, each possessing within itself a seed of the opposite quality; "pure" yin and yang exist only as abstractions. The universe is a dynamic whole whose only constant is change. If we could perceive at higher frequencies, we would see that people and their environments swirl (like the yin-yang symbol); the subtlest change within a pattern can alter the course of a lifetime.

As energy concentrates, form emerges. Form is maintained by the continuous circulation of energy in a prescribed fashion, and the particular circulatory pattern simultaneously determines and reflects the nature of the resultant form. Energy courses through the body via etheric channels, popularly known as meridians. Each meridian is associated with a function that reaches its densest level of operation in a particular bodily organ. In that sense, organs can be likened to physical planets. Meridians are also linked with organized foci of energy having no known corporeal counterparts, analogous to the etheric planets (such as Vulcan) referred to in the esoteric astrology associated with Alice A. Bailey. Planets and organs literally embody the macro/microcosmic relationship: planets are the organs and energy centers of the Solar Logos, and are themselves the physical forms of great beings known as Ray Lives; specific human organs are associated with endocrine glands which are likewise manifestations of cosmic energy, and each of our endocrine glands is linked astrologically with one or more planets. Organs and planets communicate with each other and with the greater wholes in which they participate via energetic channels relating all levels of substance. We have seen that these are called meridians in the body (Earth as a physical form also possesses meridians, known as Ley lines); in space, energy flows through vectors and angles we know as astrological aspects.

Diagrammed on the body, meridians look like lines drawn between dots or points. Those dots, known as acupuncture points, correspond to specific functional phases of the organs to which they are related, and the entire meridian can be contacted and affected through manipulation of one or more points with needles, heat, touch, electricity and/or the burning of certain herbs. Acupuncture points are junctions at which energy and organism interact most noticeably; a point represents a peak level of a particular frequency. In the language of astrology, a point corresponds to the phase or area of one's circumstances, psyche and/or physical body in which an aspect is most likely to have a dramatic impact; mundanely, certain areas of Planet Earth are more likely than others to react to incoming stimuli. Aspects are lines of force attaining their greatest levels of intensity at specific times and in particular arenas of living.

As energy flows through the body, maintaining and recreating it according to a spiritual template, blockages are often encountered. These can arise for any number of reasons, chief among them being attitudes such as worry, fear, anger, sadness, overcompensation (laughing on the outside, crying on the inside) and emotional excess of any kind, including elation. In the physical body, the result of these attitudes is illness. This is where cause and effect interpenetrate most noticeably, each changing into the other: imbalance is at the root of illness, and illness results in imbalance. Which comes first? That conundrum is at the heart of Oriental medicine and philosophy, and is the reason why no attempt is made to separate cause and effect -- indeed, the very idea of doing so is ludicrous from the traditional Eastern standpoint. The Western mechanistic view of the body is an exemplar of the separatism which bedevils the human race, preventing the unification of consciousness that must inspire the next steps in our evolution. We face this dilemma in astrology, as well, when we analyze aspects with an eye to determining strict cause-and-effect relationships. We need to remain alert to the human being through whom cosmic energies focus, for it is within the individual that possibility resides, and forces actualize. Esoterically, that is the principle behind ritual breathwork and meditation, in which meaningful activity occurs in the spaces between breaths.

Blockages are inseparable from imbalances. If meridians, acupuncture points and physical functions together act like planets in aspect, we can carry the analogy further and say that certain astrological aspects, notably the square (90 degrees) and opposition (180 degrees) coincide with conspicuous energetic imbalances. All of these are known as "hard" aspects, due to the inherent qualities of those angles and because they are correspondingly difficult to manage in life. The hard aspects tend to parallel imbalances of activity, but the "soft" or easy aspects, like the sextile (60 degrees) and trine (120 degrees), can indicate imbalances of a passive nature. If energetic blockages are associated with illness in the physical body, on the subtle level they inhibit the full expression of the soul; but since aspects represent energetic potential, any of them can be applied constructively or destructively by a human being. Once again, we encounter the propensity of yin and yang to "morph" into one another, uncovering the friction that drives life, growth and consciousness, itself.

The aim of Oriental medicine is to reestablish balance in the body's energy flow so that the body can heal itself, and -- because body, mind and spirit refer to relative densities of substance and not to discrete categories of existence -- that is also the task of the astrologer. The Oriental medical practitioner and the astrologer each endeavor to learn who is before them: What is this person's life experience? How does this person manifest his or her inner reality? What does this person need in order for balance to be reestablished? There is no magic formula, medical or astrological, that will benefit all people equally. One must be open and sensitive to diversity, guided by long human experience (one's own, and one's predecessors'), but without preconceptions. The pulse speaks to the medical practitioner; the chart, to the astrologer. In both cases, the objective is to restore and support the optimal flow of energy within the unique person encountered in either setting. There are different types and combinations of ch'i, allowing for variation in form and experience; one manifest ailment or affliction can be associated with a multitude of energetic preconditions. That is why a "cookbook" approach to medicine or astrology can only crack the surface of any form; it can never take us all the way inside. For that, we need our intuition and a willingness to suspend crystallized judgement.

Traditional Chinese medicine likens a human being to a musical instrument, and therapy to a process of "tuning." This is true of astrology, as well, when its practitioners seek the harmony of the spheres expressing through each human being. Ideally, we focus on the innate wisdom of the soul seeking expression through our clients; where there is disharmony, we endeavor to identify and ameliorate areas of vulnerability. The chart speaks to us, not of unconnected traits or tendencies, and not of what is "wrong" with someone, but of a whole human being striving toward the fullness of his or her potential. Whether we hear it through the skin or a birthchart, the coordinated pulse of the universe is a beat of infinite complexity, layered harmony and undeviating momentum.

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