An Earthly Offering

An Earthly Offering to Temper Sagittarian Fire

 According to James Hillman, the experience of psychological inwardness and depth, is the Greek goddess Hestia’s domain.  I couldn’t be more in agreement with Hillman’s thesis. I have referenced this idea in greater detail in a prior Word Press blog.

At the present time, and throughout the next year, the Greek goddess Hestia will reside in the astrological sign of Virgo, where I think she will be most comfortable.  While there, she will coexist, alongside Jupiter, aka her Greek cousin Zeus, King of Mount Olympus. Hestia’s influence expects to play a large role during astrological Jupiter’s current, year long tenure there.

I have always felt mixed as to Virgo’s mysterious, astrological rulership.  In part it fits, that she is close to Ceres, asteroid goddess of the grain. Also in the running, is her closeness to the mercurial aspects of Hermes, guide of souls. All are certainly of fine minds, as is Hestia herself. Yet, more and more I find Hestia, Greek virgin goddess of the hearth, to be the one I see as intimately, soulfully connected to, and at home in, the astrological sign of Virgo.

Now that Hestia’s cousin Zeus, a.k.a. the astrological Jupiter, king of the Greek pantheon, has taken up residence alongside Hestia in the sign of Virgo, both will coexist within, that deep, deep inner, spiritual domain, where, as I recall, Hestia, once made a lifelong promise to Zeus, to tend what I imagine has been and continues to be one helluva fire!

For sure the language of Greek mythology fused with astrological symbolism, can be a bit confusing when mixed together. Just take my word for it, that as one becomes more familiar with each, their pairing up and overlap will be automatic and make sense.

For now, just hang on to this–Earthy Virgo and fiery Sag share spiritual leanings that have different manifestations. They are kin, cousins I believe, kissin’, not likely. Jupiter’s dance card is overflowing with other options. As for Hestia, well to be honest, word has it that she’s still, shall we say pure?  With Jupiter’s transit now in Virgo, our task will be to somehow find that place within Virgo’s, Hestian, earthy, fiery, domain of endless depth, that can couple up harmoniously– and perhaps even magically–with cousin, Zeus. Together they can go about the business of tempering the Jovian fire that often leads to endless flights of fancy, and that on occasion, provides fuel for mania. We’re talking refinement here. That said, there is no more exciting sign, in my view, than Sagittarius, well at least initially! No one has ever been able to fly me to the moon better than Frank Sinatra, a well-loved sag! The astrological element of fire can be and is very exciting. However, astrological Jupiter now in Virgo, is up for some refinement. And heck, what’s a little refinement between cousins?

So what can happen, when the element of fire pairs up with the element of earth? Despite what at first may seem like an incongruous pairing, something within me is oddly enough, incredibly drawn and turned on by the pairing of these two deities, Hestia and Zeus, aka astrological Virgo and Sag!  Somehow, despite their naturally, divergent, astropsychological perspectives, personalities and style of meeting human needs, they are currently and for one year’s time, in this thing together. Might they be just what the other needs to compliment, those places within each, where there is either too much conversational over-extension, and/or, too much emotional conservation, carefulness, delicacy?

Could Jupiter’s current visitation in Virgo, temper the Hestian tendency toward timidity, shyness, and the need to overly plan in the interests of safety? Hestia’s pure, virginal domain just might cool the heels of mania and grandiosity often characteristic of those grandiose, Jupiterian, puer flights into a world of endless ideas often unable to find and /or experience consummation!

Either way, for the entire next year, fiery Jupiter goes about the business of taking up residence within Hestia’s earthy—Air B&B! Their co-existence during this transit does indeed promise an offering of significant proportions by the end of Jupiter’s tenure there!

In this regard, I have offered up my own sculpture entitled “Offering,” as both referee and mediator, to make sure things don’t get out of hand completely. This I hope will allow temperate Virgo to fan the boundless flame of Sagittarian ideas just enough to not only keep things interesting, but perhaps, just perhaps, to also lead us to another, newer way, in which we might urge that magically, fire-infused archer, to take on some of the more sustainable, perspectives, qualities, or form typical of a Hestian worldview.

 As Hestia and Zeus move in transit through astrological Virgo, I make this hopeful proposal: I would like to see Hestia’s ‘offering‘ as a call to Jupiter to forge an opening, a letting-go, a joining, a kind of wedding, whereby those deep, deep places of Hestian inwardness and reflection– become exquisitely, intimately infused with a sense of optimistic, Jupiterian, belief that will ultimately be passed on to us as a global collective.

O.K!  I’ll say it honestly, more definitively, with what I hope is greater clarity: It is my offering (my Sagittarian-like, ultimate fantasy) that the unique blending of Virgo and Sag becomes the new, fertile ground (Virgo) out of which global healing (Sagittarius) may be born.

Have I over shot it? I certainly hope so!

What will your offering to both these mythic, astropsychological deities be?

Judith Harte

8/22/15

Thinking About Fathers in the Middle of the Night

It’s Father’s Day…

A salute?
Perhaps…
No!
Better
A kneel
A curtsy
A lacy veil
For seeing through
To Cynic’s Road
And
That remote
Rigid
Foreign
Desolate
Land of The Fathers
Judith Harte

Here I sit here on Father’s Day reviewing proofs from our recently published book, Images of Soul: Reimagining Astrology. Our book’s central thesis resonates and concurs in part, with those seminal ideas postulated by the late James Hillman, in his magnificent red book, The Soul’s Code.

In our little red book, Images of Soul: Reimagining Astrology, co-authored by myself and Marriage, Family Therapist, Evolutionary astrologer, writer, editor and poet, Hadley Fitzgerald, we’ve followed Hillman when he postulates, that each of us is born with a metaphorical acorn that serves as carrier and container of our soul’s codes. To this possibility, Hadley and I have added the notion that also within that container, i.e., horoscope, there is a map and timing mechanism of one’s soul’s code, calling and fate.   The graphic (timing mechanism) on our book’s cover which was discovered online was created by a photographer who photographed an acorn and assembled the tiny timing mechanism, made of antique watch parts, which he then placed within the acorn. The minute Hadley laid eyes on it, she knew the visual image inside that acorn was everything we were in the process of writing about.  Our graphic’s person enclosed the image within a circle and we had the workings of a horoscope!

It is fitting on this Father’s Day, to acknowledge Hillman’s role in our book’s creation and development. After all, his ideas about an acorn-driven theory of fate and soul have not only in-part fertilized and fathered our book’s thesis, but his work has also prompted us to reimagine and amplify our professional lives as astrological psychotherapists in profoundly new and exciting ways.

For the most part, our book finds agreement with Hillman when he postulates, that we each have within us a metaphorical acorn destined to become a particular type of oak tree. As I understand it, this idea functions in tandem metaphorically with the notion that we each have a particular life, or calling designed and meant especially for us.  Hillman notes, that there is a Daimon, or guide in charge of each of each of our destinies. We’ve aligned and analogized our thinking with this notion, added one factor, and offer this as possibility to our readers.  The container and timing mechanism of and for this pattern of destiny is contained within, and symbolized by, one’s birth astrological horoscope, and it’s transits and progressions. This simply means we are enabled then, to study the soul’s movement in and through time.  By studying these astrological indicators of the soul’s movement through time, whether within one astrological counseling session, or the ongoing process of psychotherapy, one may track, conjecture, hypothesize and/or describe the fate and life of one’s soul astropsychologically, in an evolutionary sense, i.e., from lifetime to lifetime, or simply within and during the process of one life at a time.

It is fitting then for me, on this Father’s Day, to again acknowledge Hillman’s role in our book’s development. After all, haven’t his ideas about an acorn-driven theory of fate, in part, fathered our book’s thesis in what for us has been and continues to be, a new and exciting way?

As I write, a feeling of sadness emanates from my heart and feels as if it is about to physically spread over my entire body. I inspect my chest expecting to see a manifestation of some kind of bright, red rash. Despite the increased continued sensation of tingling nothing actual appears on the surface of my skin. My emotional heart tells me that I’ve entered into a state of grief.

“For what or for whom do I grieve,” I ask out loud as if speaking to the air?  The posture of my body crumples. I find and take refuge in the well-cushioned corner of the couch.

I’m flooded with a fusion of grief, loss and gratitude, to and for the world, that has opened inside of and before me.  I am especially aware in this moment of the gratitude I feel for having discovered the exquisitely soulful products of Hillman’s groundbreaking work written and imagined by him during his physical life. And now that he is gone and no longer physically here, I have the good fortune of still being able to partake of the body of work that is now his bequest to us all.

Do I love Jung? Is he eternally brilliant, and amazing? Of course! Seeing through to psyche via Jung’s Collected Works, his Red Book art and text is an experience that I /we may not see the likes of ever again. Sometimes I sit and stare at Jung’s Red Book and could swear I see it moving with a kind of rhythmic pulsation. I can imagine Jung easily. He is the ultimate. I’ve even had imaginal dialogues with him in which he is referred to as psyche’s grandfather!

In contrast, for over twenty-five years I’ve experienced Hillman’s living, physical presence, heard his lectures, read his books over and over from 1979 to the present. I’ve spoken with him, literally and imaginally, even been his dinner partner on one occasion, as a gift given to me by a beloved mutual friend on this friend’s sixtieth birthday! And more recently, as another way of embodying his meaning, I‘ve sculpted Hillman’s face in bas relief, complete with his occasional trade-mark khaki military-style shirt and eye-catching reddish tie, as shown here in this blog. And lastly, sadly, gratefully, I attended the moving memorial so exquisitely orchestrated by his widow Margo Mclean, in Manhattan. Those important, real-life events will remain ever imprinted in my memory.

So why the tears on this Father’s Day weekend? I cannot quite describe what is missing now, other than the obvious, but I’ll take a stab at it. Perhaps it is the alchemy that Hillman’s physical presence on this planet engendered for me that I so miss and that I have transferred onto him as carrier of same. The undercurrent within my psyche of his absence in our world seems to bubble up and overflow every once in a while, until it happens to have landed this year, on what better day, than Father’s Day weekend?

For those conversant with the astrological language: A bit of astrological type and cross match provides reinforcement for my unending loyalty to Hillman’s work:

Astrologically, Hillman’s Chronos/Saturn, i.e., his (astro-mythological father) conjoins my astrological Hermes/ Mercury (teaching/learning – soul guide, communication/Trickster).  Both gods are placed in the in-depth, mysterious, hold on to the bitter end depth psychological sign of Scorpio. This astrological twosome of Chronos/Saturn holding hands tightly with Hermes/Mercury is a configuration that not only deepens any psychological investigation, but in my case, also resides and has its genesis in my own horoscope’s Hades/Pluto’s mysteriously, unrelenting Scorpionic realm. The Hermes person (me) takes direction in terms of her learning, from the Saturn/Chronos astrological father figure, i.e. (Hillman)! One cannot help but ask, what better dynamic then, than to lead, inspire, teach, be shown the ropes and other ways in which to see through to those Hades’ depths out of and from which puer-like images of soul generated by a mythic figure such as (Hermes) emerge? The esteemed author/astrologer/educator Richard Tarnas, might say that I’m in the grip of a major astro/psychological archetypal complex! And… he would be correct!

Yes, this archetypal astrological union of  Father (Saturn) teacher Mercury (Hermes) communicator, & guide of souls, together within the in-depth Scorpionic land of Hades /Pluto satisfies Tarnas’ wonderful definition of the astrological term “archetypal complex” like nobody’s business. And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now, for a bit of plain English translation for those not so astrologically inclined. Hillman’s ideas, words, writing, humor, and originations from the depths, are all metaphorical instruments and manifestations of Hermes. How very lucky am I to be endlessly guided, fathered and taught by these. Hillman was/is my ultimate, Saturnian, senexy, father figure and teacher, with a sprinkling of Puer (eternal youth) thrown in for good seasoning! His Hades-based (Scorpionic), fatherly (Saturnine) ideas/teachings, ignite my own Hermetic, Scorpionic Mercury, allowing for seemingly endless excursions into and out of Hades’/Pluto’s underworld, and Scorpionic realm of soul. For a Scorpio, such as myself, despite or perhaps because, of that exquisite agony, it doesn’t get any better than that!  It is appropriate, then, is it not, to cry occasionally over and during the activation of such psychological depths? Doesn’t it makes sense, that every once in a while, and most especially on Father’s Day, that I, this eternally, psychologically and personally, fatherless daughter currently resisting her way to Cronehood, react to those impulses sent to her from the underworld land of Hades/Pluto?

Astrological images of soul are gifts from the underworld.  They are borne on the wings of dark angels and delivered by the winged god, Hermes/Mercury. They originate from a dream-laden, dark, mysterious, invisible realm and have their origins and being in psychic life. Our engagement with them affords clues to our fate, our calling, our souls. To this time-weary, eccentric, psychotherapist/astrologer, recently referred to in passing by a colleague as “that shrink who sculpts,” these Hillmanian, imaginal gifts by proxy are welcome on Father’s Day or any day.

Judith Harte

Father’s Day – June 21, 2015
— all rights reserved

Sculpture: Bas Relief portrait of James Hillman
Soul to the World – Judith Harte – Artist

Early Morning Musings on a Depth Psychology…

Yesterday, I experienced a mini heartbreak when I discovered that I would likely miss the exciting webinar related to DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY ALLIANCE’S exploration/definition of depth psychology to which I had looked soooo forward. And yes, I’ll admit that upon finding that because of some computer snafu having blocked access to my participation, I had what could best be described as a tearful, regressive tantrum, reminiscent of a childhood in which my greatest claim to fame was being or feeling left out of the party!

OK so what! A few hours passed. I calmed down. Had a lovely talk with my soul sister, depth psychology member, psychotherapist, astrologer, and Kaballah colossus Eva Rider. Eva referred me to the excellent video by James Newell, in which the evolution/origin of depth psychology was beautifully articulated and chronicled. I watched the video and fell asleep. However, upon awakening in the middle of the night, something felt incomplete.

I was back from dreamland, and at the ungodly hour of 4 am, I was immersed in the wonderful experience of once again following the thread that any experience spent in the process of musing from dreamland always provides.  There is always some awakening thought or question that jars me to consciousness. What had I missed because of my inability to attend the aforementioned webinar? Just what was/is the nature of depth psychology. Was/is there more? What did I personally need more of in the way of definition?

I began my Internet exploration.  While my destination seemed unlikely, its impetus certainly was not.

After my perusal of various sites, I arrived at Jung and the Kabbalah where a discussion entitled “The Depth of the Soul: James Hillman’s Vision of Psychology,” by Sanford L. Drob was taking place.

My daimon did not disappoint. Of course! I had been led there. Where else? After all, hadn’t I just completed a telephone conversation with Eva Rider, whose current main squeeze was her work on the wonders of Kabbalah? And for me, wouldn’t a discussion and attempt at definition of depth psychology be incomplete without a discussion of James Hillman’s in-depth vision of soul? To this end Stanford L. Drob had written:

For Hillman, the psyche is inherently multiple, and requires a psychology that insists neither upon integration nor a unified subject. The soul has many sources of meaning, direction and value, and, as Thomas Moore puts it: The psyche is not only multiple, it is a communion of many persons, each with specific needs, fears, longings, style and language. The many persons echo the many gods who define the worlds that underlie what appears to be a unified human being. (Moore 1991, p. 36)

It’s that last line of Moore’s that really grabbed me. Yes! It is those “many persons “ that “echo the many gods who define the worlds that underlie what appear to be a unified human being.” That sentence not only attracts the hell out of me, but also does a fine job of providing what for me is a core tenet of the depth psychological perspective.  I’ll say it another way, one that perhaps makes the definition more practical and useful. We are many people inside and out. We are each fed by layers and layers of complex needs. Often we get very hungry, very cold, too hot, very lonely. We are driven and possessed by need. We are needed by, love and long for, a myriad of “others” appearing in the guise of strange gods, whose eternal cries, haunting laughter, love, and hate, is ever alive, ever deep, often bottomless.

For me depth psychology is the honoring and allowing in of those many souls /persons, that as Moore has so eloquently stated, “define the worlds that underlie what appear to be a unified human being.”

In part my work as an archetypal astrologer also affords an additional in-depth picture and offers a host of possibilities for doing, defining and exploring our human worlds. The horoscope is a container for those gods and goddesses that underlie and star in the life dramas that are specific to for, and within each particular person. That’s why I so love the astrological horoscope with it’s map of in-depth multiplicities.

Hillman’s ideas stand well upon, and in-part comprise the psychological shoulders of all who have gone before. We cannot possibly know what this will mean for the future of a depth psychology whose earthly boundaries, also extend outward and beyond the soul and person of the human being. At the very least, we must keep those earthly, human shoulders well muscled — its ground well fed, with the respected depth of psyche’s images. To do so, would mean an honoring of depth psychology, no matter its locus or definition,

Judith Harte
Mother’s Day
May – 2015

References
Drob, Sanford L.
The Depth of the Soul: James Hillman’s Vision of Depth Psychology
Jung and the Kaballah
New Kabbalah website (c) Sanford L. Drob, 2001.

Moore, T (1991). Prologue, Introductions. In A Blue Fire: Selected Writings by James Hillman, introduced and edited by Thomas Moore. New York: Harper Perennial.

Keeping the Fires Burning Within

THE ASTROLOGICAL HOROSCOPE
HESTIA’S INNER DIVINITY

About a year ago, I noticed some activity within my own horoscope involving Hestia, that mythic, spiritual, virginal, asteroid goddess of the hearth. Curious about what this might mean, I researched the asteroid Hestia’s mythical story, while observing her astrological movement and activity within my own horoscope. By way of explanation, asteroids are those astronomical, allegedly less significant points within a horoscope, often named for mythical figures. Don’t be fooled as to their significance. Their symbolic existence and activity pulls some heavy weight and lands some mighty punches! What I’d conjectured after careful research, thought and reflection, about Hestia’s reawakened activity and current place in the hidden spotlight of my own life, was that some emergent, spiritual, inner and/or outer deeply psychological experience, perhaps referencing religious, and/or mythic figures was about to assume center stage.

Hestia did not disappoint. Before too long, a book, entitled Images of Soul-Reimagining Astrology, coauthored by myself and Evolutionary Astrologer and Marriage, Family Therapist Hadley Fitzgerald began taking shape, and is now available for online purchase through Amazon books.

In our book, Hadley and I, both astrologers and licensed psychotherapists, set forth the notion each horoscope is driven by a mysterious inner timepiece, curiously cloistered within the image of an acorn. The significance of at least an aspect of this metaphorical configuration, that of the acorn’s symbolic value and literal purpose, was influenced, impacted by, and closely akin to the central ideas postulated by the late James Hillman, in his groundbreaking best-seller, The Soul’s Code. (1)

Our book conjectures that within each horoscope there lives the metaphorical image that is akin to Hillman’s acorn. However, we have proposed that the acorn also contains a mysterious time piece mechanism that drives our soul’s code or particular path — and in turn acts as pulse, momentum and rhythmic driver of each person’s life calling. We hypothesized that if one were to embrace this notion, one might be afforded a real-life depth understanding of psyche/horoscope, and the opportunity to consciously embrace and follow the beat of their fate and life direction. We further speculated that exploring one’s “Soul’s Code,” guided by a metaphorical acorn which also contains and is driven by the rhythmic pulse of a mysterious, inner time keeper—at the ultimate direction of an angel, or daimon—did carry implications for the understanding and exploration of both psyche and horoscope. In short, we postulated that horoscope, acorn, timekeeper, and daimon, provided reliable, poetic, viable pathways to one’s personal “calling,” inspiration and soul.

Although Hadley Fitzgerald and I each brought our own divergent biases and methods to our co-authoring experience, we discovered that, rather than clashing, our positions were in fact quite complimentary. Despite our contrasting methods, we were, each in our own way, inclined to draw upon image as metaphor when working with clients.

Now as I eagerly explore and bring my own biases to this discussion, I find I am also captured by another factor or presence, within this quaternity consisting of horoscope, acorn, timekeeper and daimon. She is, as James Hillman notes, Hestia (2) the oh-so- divine “guardian of our images.” I see Hestia’s inner divinity, expertise, and imaginal guardianship, as the prime mover behind the ways in which I imagine the astrological interview and consultation. I find as I’ve engaged in that imaginal astro-psychological process that for me, it is Hestia, who, without exception, is the mythic impetus, and container behind both the acorn and that mysterious, inner astrological timepiece, portrayed on our book’s cover. Hestia’s rhythms impact and drive our psycho-mytho-astrological explorations, and… if one is so inclined in their thinking to embrace such notions, perhaps it is she who holds domain over our past and present life explorations and unfolding.

In short, Hestia navigates, oversees, drives and is the goddess behind the patterns and processes inherent within that map and container of our soul’s codes: the astrological horoscope. This mystical, spiritual, eternally maiden goddess, drives our daimon’s trajectory. Her signals inform our exquisite inner time pieces, as to when it is just the right time for the next twist, turn and/or resting place in, or on, our life’s circuitous journey. I’m certain I join with my daimon here when I ask: How could I/we not take our cues from Hestia, the exquisitely silent, wonderfully wise, spiritual goddess of our hearths?

The late James Hillman looked to Hestia as the silent, mythic, archetypal presence behind psychotherapy and Jungian Analysis.(3)
Given the premise within my original doctoral thesis positing image=psyche=horoscope, it makes perfect sense to me, that if, as Hillman has noted, that Hestia indeed governs “the inner psychic structure,”(4) and if, as I’ve just premised that image = psyche = horoscope, then can’t one reasonably assume that Hestia is also the driving mythic, presence behind and within the astrological horoscope? Who better than this silent goddess—whom Hillman has described as “governing the inner” depths—to act as both prompter and guide, in our own discovery of psyche and horoscope’s mysterious calling and trajectory? And who better than Hestia, to sit silent watch over one’s horoscope, acorn, and curious inner timepiece? All of which must reside within the exploratory land of a depth, archetypal astrology!

As it turns out, I was correct in my suspicions that certain types of Hestian activity might be ignited by the asteroid goddess’s recent transit through my own progressed horoscope:

During this Hestian surge, I completed two sculptures with archetypal, spiritual and/or visual religious meanings! One piece, entitled Padre de mi Alma, or Father of My Soul, is of an actual priest and personal friend, and is my first bronze portrait. The other, entitled Offering is a sculpture of a spiritual figure featured in a prior Depth Psychology Alliance online publication, and also in our book Images of Soul: Reimagining Astrology. I have been thoroughly embraced by and cloistered with(in)Hestia’s divine, spiritual leanings! These and other sculptures will be featured under this blog’s Sculpture heading.

In keeping with this theme of Hestian offerings, I invite readers to leave any and all of their written offerings and reflections, at what I now think of as my blog’s Hestian door, imaginal hearth and/or altar. This is my way of gathering and encouraging others to honor Hestia’s eternal, spiritual flame, in their own lives.

I will make every effort to respond to each and every post.
Judith Harte
3/26/15

References:
1-The Soul’s Code
James Hillman, Random House, Inc.
New York, NY 10022
2- 2,3,4 In: Hestia’s Preposition
Mythic. Figures/ James Hillman
Spring Pub., Inc./ Putnam, Connecticut 06260

I’d Have You Anytime

Within You/Without you/Within You/Without You/Within You/Without You

It was George Harrison’s birthday recently, February 25, to be exact. I‘d hoped to publish this blog about him then, but as computer break down’s go, my computer just stopped me in my tracks from doing so. I’m back on line now, and I’d better make this fast just in case old faithful decides to wander off again in search of something or someone to break down over.

George, you will always be my favorite Beatle. I wish you were still around to offer more words and lyrics that ring of the sixties, and that speak the truth about those unseen worlds, always so alive and ever present ‘within you and without you.’

Happy belated birthday George. Sending you beautiful Piscean dreams to say thank you for letting us in to your heart.

“And I’d like to hold you in my arms and have you any time…”
George Harrison/Bob Dylan (Bridge)

Let me in here, I know I’ve been here
Let me into your heart
Let me know you, let me show you
Let me roll it to you
Let me say it, let me play it
Let me lay it on you
Let me know you, let me show you
Let me grow upon you

All I have is yours
All you see is mine
And I’m glad to hold you in my arms
I’d have you anytime
Let me in here, I know I’ve been here
Let me into your heart

George Harrison/Bob Dylan(Bridge)
Trewin Copplestone Publishing (London)

There! I’ve reproduced the lyrics of a song written mostly by the late, but to me, still very alive, George Harrison, along with the living Bob Dylan, who contributed the bridge. Right up front I need to say that George Harrison is, and always will be my favorite Beatle.

When I opened my eyes this morning at 5:45 AM, all at once I was back in The Sixties. The welcome, haunting sounds of George’s guitar coupled with the lyrical language of his undying love, had taken up welcomed space in between my ears. What a spiritual, sexy, guitar George Harrison played. And those lyrics!

“Let me in here. I know I’ve been here.”
It seems as if he’s pulled to something terribly compelling and familiar in and about the other?

“Let me say it. Let me play it. Let me lay it on you. “
With polite certainty, he asks permission to love her.

“All I have is yours. All you see I mine.”
Bob Dylan offers a declaration and promise of sacrifice, telling George between the lines, to give everything!

“And I’d like to hold you in my arms and have you anytime.”
That’s what George wants. He lays it right out, says it straight.

These lyrics speak to me of recognition of an experience of something or someone the singer has known before. A prior life?
A prior love? A prior dream? He senses the potential for ecstasy. He wants it, whether once again, or for the first time. No matter. He wants it, And, he wants it with her!

“Let me know you. Let me show you. Let me grow upon you.”
He’s trying everything to be seen, to be heard, to be held, to attach, to share, to merge, with taste and decorum, while at the same time waiting, holding, and containing…. time. He lays it out and then, in spite of his eager certainty, vows to wait patiently

“Let me know you.”
Ah, we might have guessed. The origin of his desire is now rooted in the biblical!

“Let me show you.”
He asks her permission to demonstrate his affection!

“Let me grow upon you.”
Having covered all the bases, he expresses his need in the most subtle of ways, in order to show her that he’ll take his time and that he can wait.

“Let me into your heart.”
Oops! Well maybe he’s not so patient after all.
He goes for it, takes a straight shot, asks for the whole tamale! He’s anxious to share what’s there, what he already feels. He wants/needs what has happened for him on the inside to be made concrete. Does he have a knowing and/or a hoping that the “thought”(s) of her “heart” and of his, will one day meet again, to embrace and literally merge? Does he perhaps sense and understand, somewhere within him, that it has been the images of their love that have helped his heart to survive her absence?

Or, as the late Archetypal Psychologist, James Hillman, has noted, “the thought of the heart is the thought of images. ”(1) Images of psyche (or soul) are often considered and experienced imaginally, i.e.(non-literally). I for one, am greedy. In fact one might even say, bi-imaginal. I like and take my images, both ways: as ocular literalisms and /or as psyche’s imaginal paintings!

And, what about any psychological projection that might be at work within the one singing these plaintive phrases, i.e. Harrison? Is he blindly unafraid, maybe even stupidly so? Perhaps, but that doesn’t seem to be the issue. Or if it is, it does not deter him. After all, when the imaginal fires of love, projection and transference are turned up, how many of us easily stand around when in the throes of a strong attraction, worrying about any danger that might lie beneath our desires? Of course we should pay attention to the warnings and/or other signs of delusional love, but must the magic be sacrificed in order to do so? George, seems unwilling to go there. He’s wrapped in blind faith, and the kind of mind-altering trust so prevalent and characteristic of the sixties. Everyone loved everyone then. No questions asked. Love coupled with the experience of enlightenment was the formula for ecstasy. Everyone wanted it! After all, George of all people, knew, believed, and wrote that the “lord,” was “sweet.” He was “within you” and “without you,” while both keeping and giving away everything he had in the bargain, all at the same time! With those alleged conditions of fair exchange, how can one lose?

I choose to believe that our singer, the late and much beloved, George Harrison, senses that something he needs deeply awaits there within the familiar chambers inside “the other’s” heart. He’s not afraid of the cost of that shared exploration. In fact, he covets and longs for it.

Since it is my predisposition to engage with those heavenly, mythical, astrological archetypes, so fondly referred to by me, as images of soul, I dug up George Harrison’s horoscope and took another look. I have his time of birth, but I’m not one hundred percent certain of its legitimacy. In which case, I turned instead, to one or two of the planetary, archetypal configurations or complexes, within his star wheel that symbolically described his desire for and description of, the ideal woman. I found his deeply erotic Scorpio Moon beautifully configured with his romantic Piscean Sun, with both easily, luckily, engaged with that great, big benefic (well most of the time) planet Jupiter. All three members of this ever–so- spiritual Beatle George’s archetypal astrological family– the Sun, Moon and Jupiter–were contained in a romantic, triangular, watery bath. If you take this astronomically arranged, archetypal love and beauty complex known as Venus/Aphrodite and place her in enchanting opposition to the romantic, spiritualized, planet Poseidon/ Neptune, aka higher octave image of Venus, you have the ultimate, spiritualized ideal of woman otherwise known as a Goddess. Did someone just scream out “Jung’s Anima?”

Given this star-driven parade of ideal, feminine perfection and beauty, so well-represented and carried by and within the archetypal configurations of George’s horoscope, it makes perfect sense to imagine him standing in the doorway of his beloved’s life repeating these musical laments and phrases, all the while growing more and more desperate and pleading, “let me in here. I know I’ve been here.”

The following is the image of soul, that I cooked up after a prolonged period of reflection upon the above described astrological configuration involving George’s perception of the women in his life and his impact, or not, upon them.

A man returns home at last, after a long journey away from his ideal and idealized woman. He fears he might no longer be or seem terribly familiar to her. Despite his anxiety, insecurity and in part fantasy-based needs, his hungry heart has remained open, faithful, trusting, unafraid.

Here several significant questions arise: Given George’s imagined internal astropsychological reality (otherwise known and characterized by me at this moment in time by the above image of soul) gleaned from, and related to, my impressions of the archetypal configurations and issues so alive in George Harrison’s horoscope, how can he not be consumed with doubt, hope and questions when contemplating the momentary capture of his ideal woman? Did she ever love him? Does she really exist, and if so, does she, will she, love him again? The aforementioned image of soul, addresses these current concerns. At another time, that same image of soul, may in fact apply to other circumstances. The point is, astropsychological images of soul, are like mini-stories, tiny vignettes, that appear to me as meditations, as I analyze and perceive a horoscope. They are powerful, rich gifts of psyche, affording life-long themes, or, as James Hillman has noted in his outstanding work, they are bits and pieces of Healing Fiction (2), like scenes from a dream, (my words) that act to deepen the interpretation of the archetypal astrological complexes within the analysis of a birth horoscope.

With these intriguing vignettes, archetypal astrology cannot help but become fiction, which, when considered with its mythological underpinnings, it already is! In this way, one enters their own story, with the option of writing it onward.

But as they say, I digress! So back to our lovely Beatle! George is now more than ready to embark upon this longed-for literal and spiritual exploration. My astrological image of soul, related to the struggle in the song’s lyrics, describes what I see as one of the core issues surrounding the mysterious, romantic, goddess-like, spiritualized imagery of women in George Harrison’s life and horoscope.

All this from the opening of a door that let in sounds from the sixties, and from which I was moved to again explore music and lyrics filled with the conjectures of my titillated and perhaps
overwrought imagination! I know, The Sixties were a long, long time ago. Yet, some part of me still lives there and always will. Bringing the rejuvenated essence of that time, into the present, still works. Especially, when I listen again to the music of that era, with what I hope is now the gift of deeper psychological awareness.

I must confess. I stand with George and his weeping guitar on this one. And so given that resonance, I make this request:
“C’mere! ‘Let me lay it on you’…”

Judith Harte
December 13, 2014

James Hillman, The Thought of the Heart
Pg, 2
Copyright 1981
Ascona, Switzerland

James Hillman, Healing Fiction
Station Hill, 1983

Chasing A Soul Print In The Middle Of The Night

CHASING A SOUL PRINT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

At my request, someone emailed me a section from their in process autobiography. Curious and interested, I wanted to sniff the flavor of its essence and writing style. After reading a small, poignant selection of the author’s work, I responded hastily to what I’d read. In my response, I’d used the terms soul print, and soul imprint interchangeably. This term foreign to Ed its author, was frankly upon further reflection, also rather foreign to me. So, when he wrote back asking, “What is a soul print or imprint?” I, prompted and moved by his question, my own curiosity and the concurrent background sounds of a howling coyote enjoying a much coveted kill outside my tiny canyon home, proceeded to offer up an answer!

As so often happens, in unintentional Talmudic style, Ed’s question led to other questions, as my own need to craft a less cavalier, more thoughtful, response and definition of greater depth encompassed me. As I worked to further mine the meaning of the term soul imprint, it became clear that my request to read Ed’s work and his curious question, were unintended gifts.

With the term soul, currently red hot and growing hotter with each day, commercially, collectively and in psycho-spiritual circles, it is no surprise that my use of the phrase, soul print, thrown out so cavalierly by me across the internet miles, clearly warranted, if not further thought, then at the very least, an exploration of greater clarification and depth.

I was interested in following through on this exploration, but my immediate answer to Ed’s request for a clearer definition of the term soul print would have to wait. Or, if not wait, then be further defined by my efforts to seek a clear definition of the term. Not exactly comfortable I’m sure, for the quick response often sought by an Aries! However, I do thank Ed for the provocation, elicited by his question! And so I riffed on it and riffed on it until I felt inklings of the satisfaction that comes with having riffed just long enough so that at the very least, as in the Talmudic tradition, further questions while not completely answered have at least been provoked.

There’s no holding back or denying the impact that being such an integral and intimate part of the terminal ending of a beloved’s only partially lived life, must’ve had upon Ed in his role as caretaker of his terminally ill partner.

I imagine that for Ed, the witnessing of, caring for, and final loss of a piece of himself and of his life, at the very least, qualified as having left a significant soul print in its own right. One might conjecture, that a terminal experience such as that, had penetrated to the very matrix of Ed’s own life and very soul. Yet, a soul print made and left by the hand of a child in wet cement, also conjures the as yet unlived possibility of the kind that only a tiny hand print left by a small child in wet cement might evoke. In fact, both the loss of Ed’s friend and lover, and that of the as yet undeveloped   hand print of a small child may both be considered to be mysterious images of as yet unlived possibilities. One, never to be lived, the other, a tiny, presumably living hand, so very much alive and waiting in life’s wings, for actualization.

Other questions arose within me as I reflected upon and contemplated this notion of soul prints. For example, is the capacity to create and/or to experience the living out and unfolding of soul imprints as given at or with birth carried within the physiological DNA until fleshed out by the experiences of our lives, and of which my friend Ed’s experience is but one example? There is no doubt that it fits as a part of his nature, his autobiography, as well as that of his departed friend. What is one to do with this kind of experience? Ed has certainly personally carried it forward into his life’s work with the dying. Are their different soul imprint questions and issues at different stages of life? How does one live from here on out after a life-changing event? What impact, i,e, soul print/imprint, has, does, or will trauma make upon one’s biography? Poetic? Literal? Psychological? Physiological? Is the impact, if there is one, ever complete in and by its effect(s)? After a powerful experience, is one called upon to take from and give back to life differently? And/or to be in this life more fully, perhaps even more courageously, while allowing and awaiting the unlived, untried, sleeping dimensions of oneself to awaken?

What are psyche’s (soul’s) messages (imprints) in the here and now?  Do they translate only into rich, unique, though often difficult, life experiences? If so, what kind? Will something of value continue to emerge from Ed’s deceased friend, even now while Ed is still alive? Does the living on of their experience continue? If so, how, and where? What is the special facet of the autobiographical imagination that makes this experience, this soul imprint, their soul imprint unique?

Seems to me, for an experience to be and/or to leave a soul print or imprint on and in one’s life, it must fall into at least one or more of the categories listed below:

1. Must be an integral and necessary part of one’s calling
2. This calling may be further indentified/articulated in and by the patterns in one’s astrological horoscope such as has been postulated by Hadley Fitzgerald and myself in our recently released publication, Images of Soul: Reimagining Astrology.
3. The archetypal, astrological horoscope itself, in its entirety, with its various themes, that when taken together become one large soul imprint and/or container out of which smaller soul imprints may be created, lived and when appropriate released into the world?
4. Possess certain unique qualities, gifts, and/or talents, that like a finger print, belong to, identify and represent only you.
5. Are any pro, or con, life-altering, life-changing experience or set of experiences that throughout the course of one’s lifetime, could be said to be responsible in-part for the transformation and/or the course of one’s life.

And, then there’s that one final question that occurs to me now, here at the end of this blog:

6. Is there an aspect of your psyche’s DNA that you would, if given the chance, designate as your eternal soul print or imprint? And if, given the vote, how would you like this imprint to be remembered, and/or identified at the soul level?

JANUARY 16, 2015

Judith Harte, Ph.D., LMFT

Psychotherapist/Marriage/Family Therapist /Archetypal Astrologer/Emerging Sculptress/Author

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