As Above, SOW Below.
Astrology as a Spiritual Path, December 19, 2018
Looking back on my life, I can see that prior to me understanding the tenets of Astrology I would not have called myself a very spiritual man. The only time I ever went to church was for the local boy scout meetings and the occasional Easter or Christmas service and such. My parents were Christians but not at all religious, although my father did substitute Jesus for alcohol when I was an early teen. I was a sensitive boy, susceptible to the emotions around me, cowering at the fury in a person’s eyes, gasping in pain at the sight of an ill-treated or dead animal. Words stung, facial expressions wounded. I could not but take everything to heart. I grew up around horses and dogs, preferring their presence over peoples, wandering the woods around my homes or deep in my imagination. I did not care why life existed. I only cared about myself and my music and my non-human friends. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Zoroaster. None of them mattered to me. I was young, smart and voracious. And I could always loose myself in my music and saxophone solos.
That sensitivity to the physical world around me opened on to another more etheric world when I discovered music. I came to know the power of the Muse, the openness, the willingness to channel the sublime and almost angelic melodies. I knew I was tapping into another world, although I never once associated it with God or Spirit. Not until I discovered Astrology. Suddenly, music had a basis, or foundation, that was stupendous as well as sublime, a mathematics that unveiled the affinities of all notes and sounds to the sky and the stars and planets. Twelve half tones in an octave, twelve signs of the zodiac. Seven whole tones, seven visible “planets”. The compositions that were potentially capable were innumerous. And thus, I became aware of God. I became more than myself, and I, these forty years later, am still in awe at the songs of life the Grand Architect has written for us in the stars. To me, Astrology has proven that God exists, whether he is in someone’s life or not. It’s all there for us to see, once you understand what you are looking at. The mere contemplation of what Astrology speaks, brings wonder, and beauty, and awe to my life. Looking outward to the sky and stars has conditioned me to see God in any direction I look. As above so below. The hermetic maxim. God within, and without. Astrology as a spiritual discipline has made me adapt this maxim to as above, sow below. I now strive to see what God has written throughout our world and then emulate that in everything I do here on Earth. I strive to play the tunes God wrote, and we interpret, with as little bias and judgement, and as much love and understanding that I can muster. Is not this of what a spiritual path consists? The ever-present awareness of God, whether fullness, or emptiness, and the desire to partake in, or emulate, that presence.
Astrology takes a lot of patience too. Knowing that we have an 84-year cycle we all experience and actually waiting around for the cycle to play out in our lives takes years and years. Only patience, allows us to forgive ourselves for not getting there sooner. Patience also leads to compassion, and forbearance, which are also the intended consequence of a spiritual path. Astrology takes a lot of contemplation, education and meditation. The chart as I draw it becomes the creation of a mandala and this mandala speaks what needs to be said right in to my being. There is an immediate and deep understanding of who that person is and what God has offered them in this incarnation, and why. Which takes me to another famous axiom, written over the entrance to the Delphic Oracle, “Know thy self”. Astrology has been a constant application of this axiom and I still learn more of Gods plan, and my delivery, every time I look deeply into my chart. It is my spiritual duty to do so for any who would ask the same. This is what being an Astrologer entails. I call it the point of know return. Faith can be broken. Knowingness cannot. Now that I know, there is no way I could ever go back.
I am nothing like the kid I once knew. And I owe the lion’s share to knowing Astrology. I thank God I was given the opportunity. And I will forever be grateful, for I know I will never stop and would never want to.This path may be long and winding, and it is not God’s location I seek. It is the knowingness that God is right beside me on my path and all around me at every turn and tune. There is know place to go, ’cause I am already there. The path is but God’s melody, and I am the instrument.