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LEVEL 1: THE INTRODUCTORY ASTROLOGY 26 The Signs - General Module:
27 The Angles: THE TWELVE HOUSES The spiritual dimension of your studies thus grows further. The house a planet is placed in, greatly modifies the energy of each planet, which has already been modified by the sign it is placed in. For example, Saturn in the 10th House is a completely different force to Saturn in the Second House. Thus, the house each planet falls in greatly modifies how each planet may be perceived as a deity, as a Face of God, as a gateway to the deep spiritual understanding of your life. Again, these newly-deeper-understood Gods and Goddesses are brought in by rituals, meditation, Deity-tantra, vision-work and journeying, etcetera, just as before, and, again, psychological and therapeutic explorations are also offered. Self. Me. “Who am I?” 29. 2nd House Values – especially sex and money. 30. 3rd House Communication. 31 4th House One of the parents - usually the Father. Home. Roots. The end of life. Hereditary factors. Inner emotions. Private life - the haven from outside pressures. Instinctive reactions - the direction our instincts will lead us in. Feeling Deeply - the deepest attachment to loved ones. Basic trust in our lives. 32. 5th House Creating. 33. 6th House Work. Service given and received. Health and health interests; physical fitness. 34. 7th House The Other. 35. 8th House Shared resources. Sex. Partner’s monetary concerns. Psychic and Spiritual interests. Transformation: Death & Rebirth. Creating new power out of our inner resources - and the methods we will use for this. Births. Deaths. Inheritance. How we will draw on outside resources? It is to do with Letting Go - Death 36 9th House Spiritual Integration. Higher learning. Teaching. Long-distance travel. Capacity to connect to the wider frame of meaning. Philosophy. Religion. Provision of an over-all view of life. Insight into the Meaning of Life. 37. 10th House Aims and Ambitions. One of the parents - usually the Mother. How we establish a place of influence in the world. Our Reputation. How we behave in a position of power. The type of person to whom we will give allegiance or take as a role-model, exemplar or hero. 38. 11th House Groups, friends, social activity. Hopes & Wishes. Working for the Common Ideal. Ability to mobilize others’ support. 39. 12th House 12. Merger with another person, with the Universe. Mysticism. Service to humanity. Integration. The effects of outside or past influences upon us. Sorrows and guilts. Secrets. Large institutions. Hospitals, prisons and charities. Acceptance. Compassion. Denial. Substance abuse. Sacrifice is involved. Bliss. THE ASPECTS Modules Nos. 40 - 47 cover the aspects formed between the planets in your chart. The energy of a planet is greatly modified by the aspects it makes to other planets. ‘Venus opposition Pluto’ is completely different to ‘Venus opposition Jupiter’. As before, the course covers the technical and deity implications, working solo or with others in the usual ritual and visionary ways, with reference to the three focus charts, with extensions into psychological sub-personality work and therapeutic dimensions. Click here to see a Key to the Astrological Glyphs’ used in the following charts: 40. The conjunction
Chart A – Leader of Peyote Ceremony The conjunction is a challenging aspect when two planets are very close to one another - up to about eight degrees apart. The conjunction manifests in the life as an immediate strong alchemical combination of the energies of the planets involved. With insight and mature ethical experience it is an aspect of great strength and power for good. More than two planets conjunct is called a stellium: a complex of raw power. You will see from Chart A, a woman who leads Peyote Ceremony, that she has a vast stellium of Sun, Moon, Mercury, Mars and the North node of the Moon, all in Leo in 7th House (orange block). 41. The trine
Chart B – Priestess of a Wiccan Coven The Trine is a harmonious aspect when two planets are one hundred and twenty degrees apart (plus or minus eight degrees). This is a latent gift. It is ‘soul strength’. It has to be understood and ‘worked on’ to come to full fruition. A trine can effortlessly blend and make available to you, the energies of two relatively inharmonious planets. An abundance of trines can grow to be the person who is lucky and blessed, but work, discipline and determination is needed to avoid a ruined crop. If mis-managed, an abundance of trines in the chart is the ungrounded optimist, the procrastinator, or the person who is silly, irresponsible, inflated, ‘oral’, feckless or criminal. A lack of trines is uncreative and bereft. You will see from Chart B, the Priestess who leads the Wiccan Coven at the Iron Age Fort imaged on the Tantric Spirituality Courses page of this site, that she ahs three Trines in her chart: the Moon trines her Sun-Mercury conjunction; her Sun-Mercury conjunction trines Pluto and Pluto trines the Moon (blue lines). 42. The sextile  Chart C – Leader of Sweat Lodge and Pipe Ceremony The Sextile is a harmonious aspect with a strong, ready, beneficial opportunity. A sextile occurs when two planets are sixty degrees apart (plus or minus four degrees). Several sextiles in your chart is abundance, though with the risk of superficiality and scatter. None, or few sextiles, leaves you under-motivated, less adaptable and less open to stimulation. You can see from Chart C, a man who leads Sweat Lodge and Pipe Ceremony, that the North Node is sextile his Sun – Saturn conjunction (blue line). 43. The square  Chart D – A leader of Bhajan The Square is a challenging aspect with a strong ever-present persistent effect. A square occurs when two planets are ninety degrees apart (plus or minus eight degrees). The square gives an uncompromising, stressful, persistent sense of inner tension. Its roots are inadequacy, guilt and fear, friction and energy. You feel threatened. You feel insecure. Your root vulnerabilities are activated. The threat is very deep-rooted. You cling to your negative responses in a dysfunctional attempt to deal with the fear. There’s bottling-up or there’s challenging and overload, but once you learn about your square and its habitual responses, then you can use your insight to overcome the obstacles involved more sensibly. The planets are either repressed or over-assertive to compensate. There’s no easy balance. It’s inhibition or overdrive. Overdrive can feel exhilarating while it lasts, but then there’s the burnout and the consequences! A lack of squares indicates a lack of developmental stress. Chart D is the chart of a man who leads Bhajan (chanting of sacred mantra – typical of Mercury – Jupiter on the Ascendant!); he is also a devotee of Kali and a powerful shaman and yogin. You can see that his Mars is Square the North Node of the moon, and Mars is also square Pluto and the Moon. Where there are two squares and an opposition like this, the resultant figure is called T-square, which is one of the many chart shapes and their psychological implications that are covered in the Level 2 Course. 44. The opposition
Chart E – Visionary Clairvoyant and Eco-warrior The Opposition is a challenging aspect when two planets are one hundred and eighty degrees apart (plus or minus eight degrees). An opposition is a tense and difficult problem of balancing the two opposing forces represented by the planets at either end, which seem to pull you in opposite directions. There’s a big lack of objectivity to start with in life – although working through all this gives greater awareness of self and others thereby, in the end, plus depth and perception. The opposition is often experienced through other people, and you are terribly over-influenced by others and his environment. You might tend to fend this off, rather than deal with it productively, perhaps by violence (opposition Mars), or by control or by abuse (opposition Pluto) or by deception (opposition Neptune), and so on. The opposition’s worst negative characteristic is the tendency to project denied material onto others. Normally it is the slower moving (more outer) of the planets that is the most likely to be projected. Other people can become your victim if you ‘lay your trip on them’ so persistently and for so long. People with oppositions tend to attract into their lives people who will be forced to play out the role of the planet in their opposition that they are denying: people who will fulfill (or who will be deemed to fulfill) that planet’s worst, most negative features. Very problematic, especially it it’s Chiron or Pluto you’re projecting. It’s very difficult for the other person to wriggle off the hook and shake off the projection – especially if you are systematically projecting onto your child or lover. The opposition’s next worst characteristic, is that you may swing between the planets at the two ends. So, someone with ‘Venus in Pisces’ opposition ‘Pluto in Virgo’ will swing between expressing Pluto negatively: perhaps by grand-staged denunciation and demonizing projection and rage, then, alternatively, expressing soft self-abnegating, forgiving Venus in Pisces the next minute, to the confusion of those around, and with loss of centre for the person concerned. The opposition can thus involve indecision, chronic blocks or polarizations, stalemates and conflicts or a see-saw motion of contacting the two planets. But the aspect is not unhelpful. It is active, eager and performance-orientated and a lack of oppositions in the chart leads to ego-centricity and self-limiting. Oppositions prompt you to learn how many different ways there are of viewing each issue and to find spiritual reality through the need to reconcile paradox and apparent opposites. Chart E, above, is the chart of a Visionary. He ‘sees’ angels and spirits of trees; he reads tarot, does Cabbalistic workings and Peyote Ceremony and plays the flute in timeless elphin style. His dedication is anti-road-building protest. He is an eco-warrior. You can see that his Sun is in a stellium in Libra with Mercury, Venus and Saturn across the 8th and 9th Houses. Sun is opposition Neptune (red line) 45. The semi-sextile  Chart F – Voudun Practitioner The Semi-sextile is a minor aspect where two planets are thirty degrees apart (plus or minus two degrees). The aspect represents a talent to be developed through life-experience. Its essentially nagging, curious energy forces you to make the effort to develop the talent it implies. Chart F is the chart of a man who is the only Voudun practitioner in a family of six Irish demolition experts and scrap dealers. He is also a member of a Wiccan Coven. You can see that Mars is semi-sextile Saturn in Pisces in the 10th House (green line) 46. The inconjunct
Chart G – Herbalist and witch The Inconjunct or Quincunx is when two planets are one hundred and fifty degrees apart (plus or minus three degrees) and therefore have ill-at-ease placement in incompatible elements. The Inconjunct has a strong effect, but it is probably only really fully felt as such when it is activated by transits or progressions, on which occasions we feel increasingly desperate. We experience periods of growing unbearable tension where the temptation can be to manipulate others rather than make the changes we, ourselves, need to make. This carries on until we arrive at a ‘fork in the road’, when we are forced to choose to go one way or another: a life-changing decision made in an atmosphere that can seem deeply fated and ‘meant’. Chart G is the chart of a woman who is an accomplished intuitive herbalist and member of a Wiccan coven. You will see that Saturn, at the top of her chart is inconjunct both Mars and Venus (green lines). 47. Unaspection
Chart H - Priestess This can be a situation where a planet makes no aspects with the other planets in a chart, or it can be connected to the rest of the chart, but just by one weak aspect (out on a limb), or it can be in an aspect with one other planet but these two planets are alone and isolated and make no aspects to any other planets. This involves the existence of a sub-personality within our consciousness. Sub-personalities can be disowned or denied and can even have autonomous will and direction. An unaspected planet is a situation where the person has difficulty accessing the energies of that planet easily. The planet may be out of touch (except when activated) or it may be swamping: the tail that wags the dog. The challenge with unaspection is to integrate the energies of the planet into the consciousness. Sometimes the planet holds great power for good as a Face of God. For example, the unaspected Uranus may be the person who normally can not bring in needed change or difference, or who gives away their divergent qualities to another, say to their partner, but who is swamped by shattering change when Uranus is activated and has to deal with it very unprepared and unconsciously. Chart H is the chart of a Priestess who leads a Wiccan Coven. She was formerly married to disciplinarian policemen who took as the decisions: unaspected Sun. Ayatollah Khomeini also has an unaspected Sun, though she does not like to be reminded of the comparison. ELEMENTS, MODALITIES AND OTHER DETAILS
How is the energy of each planet modified by the elemental quality of the zodiacal Sign it falls in? These (4) elements are: Fire, Earth, Air and Water. The (5th) element 'Spirit' is often added: what is often meant by this 5th sacred thing in the various eastern and western spiritual traditions? You learn to be able to demonstrate a basic accurate definition of the elements. Rituals are suggested so that you can contact the energy of each element, solo or with friends or fellow course members. Elements - The signs fall into the following four elemental groups:FIRE SIGNS: (Fire is vitality spontaneity, intuitive faith in one’s own abilities, ardent, enthusiastic, warm and forthright OR aggressive, impatient and domineering): Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. 49 The Modalities and the Zodiacal Signs: How is the energy of each planet modified by the Modality of the Sign it falls in? These (3) modalities are: Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable. You learn to be able to demonstrate a basic accurate definition of the modalities. Rituals are suggested so that you can experience each modality, solo or with friends or fellow course members. Modalities - The signs fall into the following three groups of modalities:CARDINAL: (Cardinal energy is extrovert, initiatory, working and doing, pushy, achieving, self-starters who want it now): Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn. 50 The Elements and Modalities and the 12 Astrological Houses: How is the energy of each House modified by its elemental quality and the modality? You learn to be able to demonstrate a basic accurate definition of the modalities. We also study the effect of hemisphere or quadrant emphasis: where planets are situated more in one grouping of houses, rather than being more equally dispersed. 51 ‘Positive’ and ‘Negative’ Manifestation: astrological energies are actually 'value free', or 'neutral', but they can manifest in a way that is called 'positive' or 'negative', or 'harmonious' or 'challenging' - and on different levels: psychological, spiritual, physical, sociological, etcetera, and also on different 'planes': the event plane or the unconscious plane, etcetera - what is really meant by 'positive' and 'negative'? This module includes a simple review of the spiritual perspectives of meaning on the terms 'positive' and 'negative' provided by the tantric spiritual forms: Hinduism, Buddhism and Paganism, and also by the archaic bedrock of them all, which is shamanism. 52 A Level 1 Method of Natal Chart Interpretation: A simple but robust and adequate method of natal chart interpretation is introduced comprising:
INFO ABOUT THE LEVEL 1 COURSE Definition: The Level 1 Course is the foundation of my tantric astrology teaching course. Aims: The aim of Level 1 is to provide a broad, basic working understanding of the components of the astrological natal chart, adequate to the purpose of accurate astrological natal chart interpretation. The Level 1 course also introduces the tantric dimension of astrology, that is: contact with the planets as ‘faces of the divine’. These Gods and Goddesses are contacted and experienced by rituals and meditation, Deity-tantra, vision-work and journeying. If you wish to have a ritual container for this aspect of your work: the creation of ritual sacred space, you can divert to study modules within the Paganism course such as PA28, Casting the Circle, PA 30 Calling the Quarters and PA 2 – 6 The Elements. This course gives technical astrological expertise equal to, or better than, any other introductory western astrology course, PLUS a quite unique experience of the planets as Gods and Goddesses: as gateways to the divine experience of the meaning of your life. This means that even for the quite experienced astrologer, there is much new and valuable on offer in the Level 1 course. Additionally, you are also offered two further special features if you wish, at no additional charge:
Focus: The sole focus of Level 1 is the natal charts of three people:
Method: In Level 1, you achieve competence in respect of each of the modules with reference to the three charts which are the focus of the course, by using:
Content: The Level 1 Course comprises 52 modules. Quite a few charts are shown on this page and the Level 2 page. The purpose of showing all these charts is to demonstrate the ‘at a glance’ rapid interpretation that I teach, and to indicate the unusual range of concrete expertise that my course offers. Assessment: Assessment in Level 1 is a shared matter between us. There’s dialogue with the aim of making the course live fully up to your needs and expectations. At the completion of each module, you can say how easy or difficult you found the module, and whether you’d like to do more, or come back to it at some future point, or move on to the next module. You also might like to say what strengths or weaknesses the module and your work on it have, or how it could be extended. And I offer my detailed and considered response and make sure your needs are met. So, even though assessment is included, this course is very much ‘learning for pleasure’. Full confidentiality and data protection is provided, except where the student agrees otherwise. However, you have the full opportunity to connect to other students on the course, if that is what you want.
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