How can we achieve a balance between self-awareness and awareness of the world around us? There is the ordinary everyday life and there is life in the spiritual world, or spiritual truth, spiritual reality. This can also be considered in another way, as balance between self- awareness and that of another, or awareness between self and a group, or society as a whole. It seems this is a fundamental question we must resolve in the course of life. The battleground of the heart is fought on the pages of our calendars, where we give our time and attention. If we give too much attention to the mundane parts of life, then it can tend to lose its joy and meaning. If we devote our attention entirely to spiritual questions we may lose a grip on our closest and most endearing values, our relationships, or we may not manage our resources effectively or for the most benefit and enjoyment.
Isn’t it possible that the natural world is just as holy and just as sacred as the spiritual world?
One only has to plant a garden to consider this possibility. The gardener marvels at his harvest. He knows that he did not provide the rain, the sun, or the forces that make a seed sprout, nor the forces that make it bloom, grow, and reproduce. All of those forces are inherent in creation itself. But a gardener does take part in this great dance. He does his part, observing his garden, observing the seasons. He does his part to plant the seed, he tends it with his love and hard work and he reaps the reward of his dedication and hard work. This begins with observation and willingness to take part in the dance of creation and help it along.
It is a sublime lesson. The ordinary, simple and everything things in life are in fact quite spiritual. This then leads to an acceptance of ourselves and others. Nothing is below us. Scrubbing the toilet is a necessary part of everyday life. Changing a diaper, doing the dishes; these are all necessary. We are all here to experience life from a certain angle or perspective which was provided at birth, and can be discovered in the birth chart, our astrological blueprint.
The intricacy of all living things, the manifold nature of the spiral teaches us!
We are doing a fabulously, wildly diverse job of experiencing life from billions of perspectives. An estimated 8 billion people all with unique perspectives, all inhabiting the planet at the same moment. Earth is teeming with human life, just bursting at the seams with it. Humanity has probably never lived in a more frenetic time-space experience than now. Our current times are a wildly robust. Appreciating that robustness of life with gratitude creates excitement for living. Understanding our unique perspectives and blueprints create more acceptance of self among diverse people from different times and places, something so greatly needed in our times.
Einstein told his son in a letter that carpentry was more important that school because of what you could learn from it.
If you are a teacher, and you get a chance, pick up and read James Hillman’s On Soul, Character and Calling. In it he explains his “Acorn theory.”
In one interview Hillman commented, “It’s important to ask yourself, ‘How am I useful to others? What do people want from me?’ That may very well reveal what you are here for.”
For teachers, Hillman gives a reminder for why we may have gotten into the profession in the first place, namely, to place ourselves in the path of young people to help them develop their potential. It is a reminder to get down to what is real and have more humility. “We need to get back to trusting our emotional rapport with children, to seeing a child’s beauty and singling that child out. That’s how the mentor system works — you’re caught up in the fantasy of another person. Your imagination and theirs come together.” The image is of lighting fires.
Hillman in an interview: I think the first step is the realization that each of us has such a thing. (a calling) And then we must look back over our lives and look at some of the accidents and curiosities and oddities and troubles and sicknesses and begin to see more in those things than we saw before. It raises questions, so that when peculiar little accidents happen, you ask whether there is something else at work in your life. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve an out-of-body experience during surgery, or the sort of high-level magic that the new age hopes to press on us. It’s more a sensitivity, such as a person living in a tribal culture would have: the concept that there are other forces at work. A more reverential way of living.
That life of reverence is so closely tied to the work of teaching. I could not describe that better than Hillman and it makes me feel at peace about being a teacher who is studies the destiny question, or what Hillman calls the acorn theory. Teaching really is all about paying attention to the other human being, and developing a deep respect, love and curiosity for the mystery of another human being and the potential of their calling, helping them uncover that despite anything else, including: what your own picture of them might be as their teacher, or what you would wish to mold them into, or even what you might have them believe.
I would like to see our educational system become more reverential of the mystery of each person, and less rigid, prescriptive and injurious to the outliers who don’t fit the mold. Perhaps this can’t be implemented in a structural way, perhaps it is just something which must be shared from person to person. Either way – we should try to do it more in whatever ways we can.
It all leads to many more questions, like how do we teach in a way that is respectful to another person’s divine blueprint? We can’t cast or stamp out each person from the same mold, in a one-size-fits-all approach. We need to leave a certain part in freedom. This is where when it comes to standardized testing or standardized anything I have bones to pick. Our society is in its infancy in terms of our ability to develop human potential respectfully. This is where and why I wonder whether and how astrology and education intersect in fruitful ways.
It’s been four long months on various levels, with many personal life changes, a move to a new house, changing schools. With the onset of the new school year, I’ve also changed teaching positions within my school, only six months after beginning my employment there. My summer was also busy with moving. All the packing and unpacking, and the countless decisions about what to keep and what to get rid of, which objects fit in my new home and what doesn’t. This was followed by lots of teacher training in a new curriculum I am unfamiliar with. It’s been like being a rookie teacher again, starting over on many levels. Starting over though, is my specialty, so I might be too much in my comfort zone.
As the dust settles a bit now, I’ve had a chance to go back to studying the stars with new perspectives and I’m impressed with how exploring my interest in astrology restores me to myself. Through just reading and asking questions, I regain my balance and certainty about many things, but most especially my personal philosophy gets re-grounded, my sense of wonder re-expands, and my faith in the unseen world is often re-stored. Right or wrong, it’s enough for me. I don’t ask or need anyone’s approval or permission, thankfully.
My most recent interests have led me to a fascinating book by Ted Andrews entitled, Sacred Sounds: Magic and Healing Through Words & Music. Andrews was a teacher and an author. He wrote many esoteric books, but his most famous book was about the relationship of humans and animals, Animals Speak. He died in 2009. In this book about music, and ancient bardic traditions, poetry and the power of words, much of what I learned through studying the lectures of Steiner and my Waldorf Teacher training was validated and reaffirmed, though re-framed in more modern language and with new possibilities and potentials expounded.
The most useful and interesting idea which Andrews relates in his book is the assignment of tones to each sign of the zodiac, an idea brought forward by Keppler, though it goes back to very ancient roots. This idea was also promoted by Max Heindel, and Rudolf Steiner, based upon the tonal fifths. This is still very strong in the Anthroposophical teachings of today.
Andrews states, “it is possible to transpose the astrological chart of an individual into a musical composition.” When we do that, we can hear what is harmonious and what isn’t.” Aspects become chords. When a discordant combination of tones is present, we can play various musical tones that blend well with that aspect, bringing harmony to disharmony. Here is a practical application of astrological knowledge, if it truly works and can be studied. In considering this, two of my favorite worlds come together: Music and Astrology. It’s hard for me not to get excited, my astrology-geekness exposed.
While these questions percolate, I continue to look at my students and try to find practical ways to meet them as individuals and as a group through relating to them, guiding them, and designing and pacing the work we do together. I continue to explore how astrology can serve on a practical level to meet these human needs and questions in education, or if it’s little more than grabbing at straws.
My major area of interest is simple to explain. A class of students born in the same year would all have very similar Jupiter and Saturn placements, so it would seem some generalizations can be made about a cohort of students. I’ve also been very interested to study the Moon and Mercury placements of individual students, as much work was done on the study of how people process information, or “mental chemistry” by Marc Edmund Jones, a famous astrologer which would seem applicable to teachers. So, for me, all these ties together: Music, Astrology, Education. More is there of course, like the moon phase at the time of birth which also brings out some helpful group qualities and individual characterizations and I am sure there is much more than these few things which astrology could bring to education, but these are the big elephants in room in my mind. I’ve found one published teacher/astrologer online, though I have yet to read her publications.
I’ve thought about writing about these things and publishing them as e-books, or posting them to the popular TpT, Teacher Pay Teacher website for sale, though these are mere curiosities at this point. I am still at the place of exploring this vast terrain, experimenting, and rudimentary application in my own classroom laboratory. In my view, if something isn’t immediately applicable to a classroom or an immediate need, teachers are just not that patient or interested. They have a total of nine seconds to have their lesson planned and prepped for the next day. They are very pressed for time. On top of that, teachers are famous bandwagon jumpers. So, in the end, I usually leave behind my temptation to turn this interest into a business and I go back to astrology and music as just a serious interest of mine, with potential to serve or help others. There is also stubborn prejudice against anything which smacks of occultism, especially in Texas. I have a long way to go to offer anything that feels safe on a professional level, or useful to other teachers, or seriously tangible. I don’t want to be part of some teaching fad and I truly loathe self-promotion, so I get quickly turned off thinking about things in terms of “business plans,” it all starts to feel cheap and gimmicky. What really interests me is furthering common good and increasing knowledge, improving practices, helping students with cosmic knowledge that is applicable in the real world. This is the type of goal often can’t serve two masters.
Eagle Eye Astrology 