There is a moment during the journey of a life, when our attention moves away from concerns that drive the question “what is going to happen next?” to a deeper level of life inquiry that causes us to ask instead questions like “why is this happening now?” ~ “what is the meaning and purpose of my current life as it unfolds now?” ~ “how best can I approach current life challenges in order to optimise the potential within all of my life experiences?”
This change in line of questioning, reflects a change in personal power, for where the former is rooted in a perception that leaves us feeling somewhat passive and powerless, the latter suggests a readiness to take more personal responsibility and a desire to engage more actively with how life is unfolding. When we begin to ask the why of things, we also begin to move toward a more cooperative relationship with life; its no longer just about the attainment of our wants no matter what, it becomes more about the quality of life and how we feel within ourselves, and how our thoughts and actions effect others and our own potential futures; it’s about the recognition that we belong to the Universe, that we are supported by it in some way, and that there is some form of organising lawful intelligence underlying existence.
I believe that all people are a complex tapestry woven of meaningful personal experiences, and that we are all, in a way, an intricate universe unto ourselves. Astrology as a tool, and when artfully engaged, can provide a map for understanding why events in our life are unfolding as they are. Commonly we want to understand the more challenging aspects of life and the difficult emotions that come with them, and in that regard the process of astrology can be an invaluable aid.
Dane Rudhyar, a pioneer of modern transpersonal Astrology, speaks of it this way: "The essential purpose of astrology is not so much to tell us what we will meet on our road, as it is to suggest how to meet it – and the basic reason for the meeting. Which quality in us, which type of strength is needed to go through any specific phase of our total unfoldment as an individual person." Evolutionary Astrology is a style of astrology that provides a map for understanding the soul and its potential for evolution; it aims to interpret archetypal symbols and energy reflected in the zodiac (heavens) in such a way that the deeper underlying causes of whatever is happening in any given life situation can be better understood from the context of the soul as an evolving being. By the term soul I mean our essence-self or timeless essential nature; the spark of God-light within all of us. I also mean our self-identity, the structure of being that appears to carry over from life-time to life-time, which acts as the interpreter for our essence-self and as the vehicle for our humanity. “Astrology, like the collective unconscious with which psychology is concerned, consists of symbolic configurations: the planets are the gods, symbols of the power of the unconscious.”
Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung
At the heart of Evolutionary Astrology is the notion that essence-self, the immutable part of any individual, what we may loosely define as soul, has an evolutionary intent; a driving motivation toward specific life experiences within any given lifetime as a means to evolve toward greater self-awareness. At the level of ego awareness this can be experienced as the feeling of life-purpose. From this perspective we are able to uncover a deeper pattern to the unfolding nature of our lives, that begins to explain why certain life events happen as they do; we are able to apprehend a richer understanding of who we are and why we are here, from which we are better able to deal with life challenges from a more empowered position.