w
 
Departments


Home





Columns, Special
Topics & Features:



The Columns:


Angel Blessings:
with Dr. Doreen Virtue


Ask Valerie Morrison,
Internationally
Acclaimed Psychic




Astrologer's Notes:


Ask Carrin Martin,
Astrologer


Basil Fearrington,
Astrology


Diana Stone,
Astrologer &
Huna Shaman


Jeff Jawer,
Astrology


Alan Oken,
Astrology


Glenn Perry,
Astrologer


Ray Merriman,
Financial Astrology:
MMA Market Week


Erin Sullivan,
Astrologer


Noel Tyl,
Astrologer


Daily Aspect Calendar
by Care


Monthly Horoscope:
Stellar Scopes
by Daija De Mornay




Creating Bridges:
The Spiritual &
Philosophical


Awakening to the
Miracle of Ordinary Life
by Dennis Lewis


Avant-Gardening:
Insights by Frank &
Vicky Giannangelo


Bodymind Integration:
A Psychology of Potential
by Kevin Roberts


Breaking Free:
Anne Brewer


Dowsing: A Path to Enlightenment:
Joey Korn


Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions:
The Esoteric "Paths of Return"
by Jacquelyn Small, Eupsychia


Pathways to the Self:
Dr. Connie Rodriguez


Understanding
Kabbalah
by Aeon


Understanding
Wicca: Ask Fyre


Understanding Kashmir
Shaivism with
Swami Devi Nostrum


Mythology & Legends


Pearls of Wisdom:
with Care


The Practical
Practitioner




Feng Shui

Wind & Water:
Carole J. Hyder




Tarot:

Soulforest:
Tarot and Spirituality
Rachel Pollack,
Tarot Grand Master


Ask Teresa Michelsen:
Tarot Reader




Unexplained Phenomena:



Humor:

Wake Up Laughing.Com:
Swami Beyondananda



Features:


Blessings & Messages


Crystals, Gemstones
& Minerals


Event Calendar


Historical
Notes & Data


The MetaPersonals


Predictions


Reviews


Symbols, Seals,
Amulets & Talismans


The What in the
World Department


Trivia & Other
Novel Moments


Your Views




Interviews:


Ray Merriman!

Jacquelyn Small!




Healing & Alternative
Health:


Flower Essences
by Donna Cunningham


Empower Yourself
to Heal
by Gerri Shapiro


The Holistic Pet:
Dr. Shawn Messonnier


Living in Harmony-Astrology, Yoga & Ayurveda: Venkat & Christine Machiraju


"Spirit and Practice
of the Wise Woman
Tradition"
By Susun Weed


Tai Chi & Qigong
by Bill Douglas


The Holistic Mystic,
by Lonny Brown


The Eclectic
Metaphysicist:
by Jim Hansen




The Directory





Archives:

Past Issues





General Information:

Synopsis of Contents


Editorial Submission
Information:

Articles
Columns
Editorial Opinions
"Your Views"
General Content
Event Calendars
Graphics & Photos
Editorial Deadlines


Advertising
Information &
Opportunities


About
The Meta Arts
Magazine





Department
Contacts:

Publishers
Editorial
Advertising Sales
Graphic Design
Promotion Dept.
Employment





Contact Us





Legal Notices
Astrologer's Notes:
Childhood Development: Roots in the Heavens - The First Seven Years
by Erin Sullivan


‘First the young, like vines, climb up the dull supports of their elders who feel their fingers on them, soft and tender; then the old climb down the lovely supporting bodies of the young into their proper deaths.’

Lawrence Durrell.
The Alexandria Quartet


Not only are children the living embodiment of a moment in time, but also they are the extension from that moment into the future - both collectively for the evolution of the human race, and for individual families to carry on their legacy. Nature has it that we are immortalized through our children, not only by passing on our genetic inheritance, but also our planetary patterns in infinitely myriad ways. The horoscope of an infant is the promise of the future, and like the vines in Durrell’s quote, winds its life symbols around and around, creating both its own future, and ours with it.


A birth chart is a transit chart fixed in time and space. The global view of the planetary array is anchored to a time and a place by the horizon and the meridian - the angles of the horoscope. The angles are the moment of incarnation. Incarnation is the beginning of the worldly life, but biological, spiritual and psychological life begins long before that. The ascendant symbolizes how we are both received and receive the world, and the descendant is how we see the world around us through others who are in the same resonance; the IC is the place in which we manifest the parental code, that is, our personal rendition of our mother and father, their mother and father, and on back through the parental line, and the MC is that genetic, psychological code as it is manifest in the world around us - the family of humanity.


The first seven years are contained by the Saturn transit as it marks each planet with its signature, forming a square to itself at around seven-and-a-half years of age. From that age onward, all aspects that Saturn makes to the natal chart are harmonic replications of the first seven-year transit, so we can say that the template of development is set by the experiences in first seven years in life. Along with Saturn’s transit, the secondary progressed Moon tracks right along with it. The progressed Moon remains in the same orb of relationship to the transit of Saturn well beyond the age of seven after which, the progressed Moon begins, slowly, to depart from that natal configuration due to its slightly faster motion. The Moon and Saturn, two parental images, are tightly bound for the first seven years of life. . . . and, thus, begins the child’s progress. Within those first seven years, other planetary cycles align with the emergence of the whole person from the little infant seed.


In the Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller proposes that an infant is aware of its environment and immediately begins to perform according to the conditions that it finds. She says:
"A newborn baby is completely dependent upon his parents, and since their caring is essential for his existence, he does all he can to avoid losing them. From the very first day onward, he will muster all his resources to this end, like a small plant that turns toward the sun in order to survive". Both Moon and Saturn have to do with instinctual responsibility - and a baby has a responsibility within its family. And, to its parents! By and large, parents forget this, if they ever knew it, and feel that they must provide all the guidance, structure and habits for the child. What they often don’t realize, is that the baby is doing all that for them as well! What kind of baby would not assert its needs as they arise? Not a single one. So, there is a mysterious, unconscious collusion between the parental expectations and the infant demands and vice versa. In this light, Saturn’s position and the Moon’s aspect to it describe the fundamental basis for early childhood interaction with the mother and father. And, it will over time, create the adult expectations - for good or ill - in relationships. We will pick up and follow this thread a little later in the article.


 Infant Acts of Heroism and Courage


"The seeds of future events are carried within ourselves. They are implicit in us and unfold according to the laws of their own nature".

Lawrence Durrell.
The Alexandria Quartet

The natal horoscope is the chart of the first heroic act of one’s life, and remains the pattern for all subsequent heroic acts. To fully appreciate childhood development we must explore the exact moment of birth in great depth because it is from that moment in time that all ensuing symbolic direction and actual movements of planets are measured. From the imprint of the birth-chart, the individuals approach to any form of change is marked. . . .and that is the heroic act of which I speak.


Transits begin from the instant of birth. Just as the infant is separated from its mother, and the umbilicus is severed, so do the transits separate from the natal planets, conspiring with the development of the baby into adulthood. The transits are always linked to that natal place, and from that base knot in the thread of time, a tapestry of life is woven. The various actual movements of planets (transits) and symbolic movements(progressions, directions, et al) are not discrete or separate from that point of origin, and thus, a good look at the source of such influences must precede any assumptions made by the planetary transits, progressions, directions or combinations of planetary motion. As we are whole system creatures, the solar system is too.


Each planet has an archetypal essence and agency; the fundamental essence becomes individuated, or personalized when the planetary symbols make up a horoscope. For example, the Moon’s archetype is the primal instincts and feeling level, and is symbolized by dark, warm, historic, maternal, nurturing, visceral and survival needs. This is a broad base, upon which are built the personal and largely unconscious needs. In a newborn infant, the Moon is purely archetypal, and represents the womb, mother, food and safety. As an adult, it means those things, too, but as archetypes they underlie the more sophisticated adult attributes such as articulate feelings, emotional responses, values, ways of being comfortable, relationships with others, grooved habits, and so on.


The psyche is like an archaeological dig - one civilization overlays another, none lost, but all ‘down there’. As we overtake our old selves and accommodate our future selves, we bury or suppress earlier, more primitive aspects of our natures. This is normal, this is why we often must go back to a source, a more original experience, when we are faced with an adult dilemma or conflict or crisis. By looking at the first seven years of life, the so-called formative years, and some of the astrological patterns, often we can find the root of a current issue.


In this article I will focus on the Moon, Saturn and the first planet of individuation, Mars.


It is impossible to make absolute statements about a childhood influence, or a condition in the home simply by analyzing the natal chart, or a single facet of it, but it is possible to relate the feeling-tone that the chart presents as a whole. Combined with the actual conditions into which one is born - social, cultural, religious, economic and so on - and the horoscope’s array, we can look at childhood development in the archetypal, astrological sense. From there, not only may we understand our own origins, but also work with parents seeking advice about their infants and children.


If the environment that welcomes a child into the world is hostile, fearful or filled with tension, then the child automatically begins to develop responses and defenses centered on that. If the home is relaxed and loving and mother is healthy and fundamentally happy, then Eden is prolonged a little, and the stresses of childhood development are worked with rather than augmented.


 Lunar Links - Patterns for Life


The Moon’s first imprint is embedded in deeply unconscious, visceral and instinctual levels of being. It is this level of memory that is virtually impossible to contact in conscious ways, through analysis, psychotherapy or behavioral techniques. Granted, all those methods are helpful in ‘loosening’ repressed material, and act as catalysts between the conscious mind and the psyche, but the process-work of healing is done through the soul, not the mind. Some trained and gifted body-workers assist patients with visceral memories that somatize as chronic pain, low-grade vitality and so on, but we are not talking about conscious access to lunar memories. No wonder we are such creatures of habit, because that initial imprint of the Moon’s passage in the first month of life, is the imprimatur of all responses to life itself.


One can gauge the first month of infant reception/response by using the lunar transit as the base-line; indeed, the evolution of the adult occurs in the same aspect sequence. Because the Moon is the fastest moving body in transit, and moves around the horoscope one full cycle in the first 27 1/2 days of life, it’s transit establishes the instinctive response to all other transits as they make their own full cycles. The Moon, as it transits each planet in the natal chart, making every possible aspect to each, enlivens each planet in the chart to a sequential order which will not change in the course of a full lifetime.


By sequential order, I mean a transit pattern. Individually, each planet in transit applies to and separates from the other planets in the same sequence, the Moon being first to do this round, and the next is the Sun (involving Mercury and Venus as well) For instance in the first year of life the Sun transits the entire horoscope once, Mars every two-ish years, Jupiter every twelve years, and Saturn every twenty-nine years. . . .all will follow the same pattern of formative aspects from that planet’s starting point.


One could build a novel from that kind of story line. If you list the Moon’s aspects in order of application to the natal planets, you list the baby’s elemental, gut response to life in an order of patterning that is the same for all planets from their own start-points.


For example, if the Moon’s closest applying natal aspect is a square to Jupiter, then there is a seed of excess - a hungry baby, hungry for everything - food, love, life! And, if the Moon’s next applying aspect is to Mars, then we have a child who is already poised for action and response, and is highly sensitive to noise, light, discord, abandonment, anger and tension. From that, let’s say that the Moon’s next aspect is a conjunction to Saturn, the child then may react immediately to its desires with feelings of denial, or an inherent difficulty in obtaining its food, love or life-force. This initial response to the set pattern of the natal planets is the imprimatur of all subsequent responses to planetary patterns.


Similarly, if the natal Moon’s closest natal aspect is an applying sextile to Pluto, then the baby’s response to life is vital, strong, and regenerative, thus it has a strong survival instinct and will likely be able to overcome life’s more difficult challenges, including survival of emotional, circumstantial and familial problems. This because its first psychic impression is one of immortality. Then, if the first planet that the Moon crosses over (by conjunction) is Neptune, then the imprint is one which renders the baby, hence the adult, inclined toward empathy and imagination, emotional longing and elusive or confused mothering. All this is read in the natal chart, yes, but is so because of early imprinting.


Looking at the natal chart in this dynamic way, and seeing it as in motion instantly, actively participating in the environment, whilst similarly engaging and activating the infantile consciousness, then we have a better feeling-tone of the infant-chart - hence, of our own adult gut reactions to life itself.


An important factor in lunar development is learning to let things be - the transit of the Moon occurs fast and early, well before any intellectual awareness is developed. Babies do not have any control over their environment. And, adults have found ways and means of creating some control over their environment, and even may have quite sophisticated methods of dealing with the environment. However, there is within the adult, the basic response of the infant, and it is that infantile response that the Moon establishes in the first 27 1/2 days of life. The lunar passivity and receptivity forms the basis of our responses to emotional and feeling situations - which, in turn formulate our needs and how to get them met. So, learning to ‘let things be’ can work against one, or it can be a way of accepting life’s outrageous slings and arrows while still being armed for the battle.


As we know, all our needs are not in our best interests, and gut, hurtful needs are difficult to track and clear out. But, it is possible to render negative needs in more positive ways through self-awareness, pattern-breaking and deep desire to alter knee-jerk reactions. An example of this kind of thing is found in children who have been abused. Their adult tendency is to ‘need’ abusing, that is, they attract or they administer abuse out of sheer instinctual habit. This is remediable to a great degree, but not totally because lunar responses are stored in the viscera. Often, analysis coupled with body work helps individuals sort out the confusion of needing love, yet not accepting it or worse, thinking abuse is love.

The lunar way is to feel one’s way through things, not think one’s way around, out or into things. It is responsive, reflective, whole-system relating and generally, a gentle way of being. Because of this, the Moon is the symbol of our instinctive, gut response to life and is often more intelligent than the intellect. Hence, our infantile responses to things of feeling, such as quality of life, people, art, beauty, sensuality and so on, are lunar based.


The First Year and the Moon-Saturn Phase


Secondary progressions are a day for a year, so the first thirty days of our life is a symbolic microcosm of the first thirty years of our life - which is roughly the period of time between which the first lunar return occurs (twenty-seven and one-half years) and the first Saturn return (around twenty-nine years). The lunar return signals the imminence of the first Saturn return, the assumption of planetary maturity and relinquishment of the child archetype.


As mentioned early on in the article, in the first twenty-seven and one-half days of life, the Moon makes a full-circle transit of the horoscope, and the movement of all the planets in that time will establish the secondary progressed movement of the planets for the maturation of infant, to child, to adolescent, to young adult. You can make a lot of that idea, for instance, by looking at the planets on your sixth day of life, and seeing how it relates to your sixth year and so on. Most of us do not, however, have access to events or changes that occurred on our third, seventh or any early day of our life, unless it was marked by an event that our parents noted. We can still wring a lot out of the symbolism of the planets, even though only the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Venus will make any really remarkable change in this first seven days/years of life.

The first two and a half years - the first thirty degrees of Saturn’s movement away from the natal position - is the critical bonding period between mother and child. This bonding is extremely important in establishing a sense of comfort, security and trust which later leads to a healthy attitude toward life’s challenges as well as intimacy in love and friendship.


The Moon and Saturn in the chart depict the quality of a child’s perception of its environment - what one child deems safe, another would find boring or repressive, whilst what one child cringes from in fear, another leaps toward with a sense of adventure. The astrologer must avoid projecting his or her own values upon an infant chart, but rather find out how that chart will experience its family, environment and its parents.


The Moon in a child’s chart shows us how emotional love, nurturing and respect is perceived and needed, while Saturn shows how a child wants to be structured, made safe and given boundaries. If there is any actual aspect between the Moon and Saturn, then there is a definite link between safety and boundaries, and the child needs considerable assurance of his or her value, and does not need criticism, but support. Moon/Saturn aspects are found in the charts of individuals whose emotional security is tightly bound-up with parental approval. Issues arose early in the child’s life that made his or her awareness of the parents need for good behavior a major factor in approval. Even the softer trines and sextiles produce an awareness of being ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and those values become the basis of adult feelings of success or failure.


Any planet in aspect with the Moon tells us the degree to which the child will be independent, and how that independence might be won, safely. Because the Moon is what we might call a non-verbal image, wherein lie our memories of greatest vulnerability, then safety is important. A Moon/Mars baby may have a high expectation of a fight, a competitive relationship with the world and specifically its mother. . .this will not change as an adult, but be modified according to life’s actual lessons, hence safety is not really safe at all. A Moon/Jupiter baby is born into a family that changes a lot, hence the adult always searches for meaning, and thus safety means movement. A Moon/Saturn baby is aware of its limits, and thus becomes a child, then an adult with a strong sense of responsibility - safety means caution.


Whereas the Moon symbolizes the inherent value of a person in an inner, emotional sense, Saturn has much more to do with the child’s external messages of its value in the world and feelings of authenticity. That is, whether or not the child is ‘good enough’, or is respected for its innate sense of right and wrong. The external measurement of one’s value in the world is Saturnian in origin and because of the nature of Saturn, bound to be in need of improvement. Saturn gives us the motivation not only to create limits and boundaries, but also to break out and cross outmoded limitations and inadequacies.


Lunar aspects are deeply enmeshed in the non-verbal, interior well-spring of self-acceptance, importance and loveability. For instance, a person can feel quite happy within themselves, seeing themselves for who and what they are, but can feel very anxious and inferior when with others or in comparison to others. When lunar aspects describe and coincide with rejection, abuse or harsh environment, it is difficult to correct simply because it is part of the non-verbal memory.




Continue
Erin Sullivan,
Astrologer


Erin Sullivan is one of the brightest lights in contemporary astrology. She has been integral to the growth of today's astrology, having founded many groups, run symposia, taught for over thirty years and presented at international conferences around the world.


She is Canadian born, and has lived in many cultures - in 1989 she moved to London England where she took on the position of Series Editor for Penguin, Arkana's prestigious Contemporary Astrology Series. Her tutoring for the Centre for Psychological Astrology in London gave birth to two of her books: Where in the World?Astro*Carto*Graphy and Relocation, and Venus and Jupiter: Bridging the Ideal and the Real.


Erin returned to North America in 1998, and continued to teach, write and consult with clientele from all nations. Her three other books are published by Samuel Weiser (now RedWheel/Weiser Publications):

The Astrology of Family Dynamics (a best seller)

Saturn in Transit: Boundaris of Mind Body and Soul,

and her masterpiece, Retrograde Planets: Traversing the Inner Landscape.

Her company, "Southwest Contemporary Astrology" publishes unique personalized astrology profiles - reports - available online on her website's secure shopper!


She now lives and practices and writes in her Rio Grande riverside home in Northern New Mexico.




Erin Sullivan
SOUTHWEST CONTEMPORARY ASTROLOGY Reports online at:

www.ErinSullivan.com
"As the World Turns: Your Personal Solar Return Profile" - a 60+ page booklet with predictive timing and trends for your solar year - fully illustrated with calendars, beautifully written.


"Your Personal Heroic Journey" - a 70 page booklet, illustrated with full interpretations for a lifetime of Saturn Transits - your cycles of growth and development.




1008 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, #255
TAOS, New Mexico,
87571-6412 USA


Tel: ( 1 ) 505-758-1931
Ext. 1 for SCA
Fax: ( 1 ) 505-751-1353





www.ErinSullivan.com

for Southwest Contemporary Astrology

Erin Sullivan

erinsullivan@newmex.com
You'll find it in
The
Directory!