Your life unfolding - Faye Blake

Gemini 2011

This might sound like origami, but in fact it is a continuation of my series ‘What if astrology is a good model for looking at the world?” My last blog post discussed how moments react with each other, and suggested there are moments waiting for us in the future that ‘produce’ something – maybe a child or a company. In this issue, I want to discuss moments awaiting us that may not do this. I want to place this in the context of time unfolding, and look at three ways time does this to us (or to any entity, like a company or a country or a cat).

The three are what I will call:

- Your biological clock
- The world coming at you
- A personal unfolding

These relate to three separate techniques in astrology and I want to look at what they imply. I’ll try not to get all technical on you.

Your biological clock

Everyone has an understanding of this term as it relates to people, and we know that animals also have a clock, even though they are on different time schedules. However, during my long astrological life it has become clear to me that companies and countries also go through puberty and mid-life crisis! Most organisational development models are not cyclic, in that they suggest a start-up and then a straight line development until the company dies. But I like the idea that companies also have cyclic phases. And because they are made up of people, I don’t find it a stretch to think that a cyclic timing of development might be the same for companies as it is for individuals.

The method I use, the Huber Life-Clock, suggests a cycle of 72 years which I have written about for companies (my Company Clock model). There are 12 phases, which are very recognisable for my clients. Everyone (I think) would accept that we go through certain stages as children. It is sometimes too strictly applied – ‘my child should be walking by now’. But ‘the terrible twos’ and teenage puberty are well known, as is mid-life crisis in adulthood which is usually said to happen at age 40-ish. (This model suggests the real one is between 45-46.)

What we instinctively know, but it is not generally acknowledged or written about much, (so we get no advice), is that there is appropriate development at other stages. For example, I wrote earlier about why pension age should be 66. But what should we be doing at age 52 or 84 or 33?

So this method assumes there are set development phases for all entities. It is a type of unfolding that we can’t escape and is applicable to everyone (although science is working on stopping the ageing process!) I think we go against it at our peril. At the beginning of this series of posts I asked the question: What if astrology is a good model for looking at the world? This biological unfolding would suggest that we all go through the same development phases at the same age – albeit in our own way. It would also suggest that there is a symbolic order in this development which is in fact the zodiac order, Aries being the start – spring and Pisces being the last stages of the winter. An order like this has been suggested many times over the years, and this conclusion doesn’t seem too radical. The 72 year timing in this model, was arrived at after long research carried out by Bruno Huber. All I can say about this method is that after using it for more than 20 years and testing it on hundreds of clients and companies, it is very recognisable. The fact that the method can also offer advice on what you should be doing now is an added bonus. Using it to look back at your life is also very insightful.

The World Coming at You

Last time, when I wrote about moments that were waiting out there that don’t necessarily produce something concrete, I was thinking of what astrologers know as transits. Once we have a horoscope defined for our moment of birth, then we have a static snapshot of the planetary picture around us at that moment. However, just because birth might have been momentous for us, it is but a passing moment in the greater scheme of things. The cosmic picture around us has moved on, and will continue to do so until the end of time here on earth.

I suggested that points that are highlighted in the horoscope are sensitive ones and that they get triggered by other moments all the time. For instance what we say to someone on their birthday – “Many Happy Returns” – actually refers to the fact that the Sun returns to the same place in the sky once a year on your birthday (or sometimes the day before or after it). Astrologers actually use this moment to look at the year ahead, and they make a chart for that moment called the Solar Return horoscope – however I don’t want to get into that here, as that is yet another technique.

Those sensitive points

But back to sensitive points. The Sun travels around a horoscope once a year and as it goes around, it crosses all the points in a horoscope. This is called the transiting Sun and on a particular day it shines a light on a particular part of the chart. Although this phenomenon could be interpreted, most astrologers don’t use this very often, as the effects are short – i.e. the Sun only touches a point for a day. A lot of work just to tell you to have a nice day! However, when we get to the slower moving planets the effect can last much longer. As a general rule I will look at what is happening from Saturn out to Pluto. Saturn takes around 28-29 years to make a cycle and Pluto about 250. Uranus and Neptune are between the two and also have long cycles. So if any of these land on a sensitive point, any effect will last as long as a year or more. So it is worth the effort to see what a particular year has in store for us and to investigate how we can make the most of it.

Your problems are not my problems!

It is clear with this system that we all have different starting points, even twins, who will have slightly different horoscopes. So this type of unfolding will be very personal. I call this ‘the world coming at you’ because it is a planet in the sky (something outside you) doing something to a sensitive point for you. You can’t do anything about this one either. Planets are going to continue to hit sensitive spots. However, unlike the biological clock, which as yet we can’t halt, I think we can have some input with transits. Things that happen in the outside world and in our environment, do of course affect us inwardly. But we have a choice as to how we respond. There is science now that says our DNA can be altered by our environments, so what we experience, do and think really does affect us. The model of transits shows us when there are opportunities to alter our future.

What transits imply is that there are certain phases that we go through. Personally I don’t think planets make us do things, I think they are just part of a system that we are also a part of. So what we are looking at is not cause, as many scientists suggest, but correspondence or synchronicity. Again, the basis of this technique suggests a group of moments in time reacting to one moment like our birth. Strange, but again a useful technique that I use to suggest opportunities in given time periods. Mostly this technique is used for forecasting, but it can of course be used to look back in time to try to understand what sensitive points might have been triggered at any given time. We can often understand things better with hindsight – transits give us a framework to do this.

A Personal Unfolding

The last technique is one that sceptics would possibly find even more ridiculous than the rest. I must admit when I was learning astrology all those years ago it took me a while to get my head around this one. The constant question in my head was “Why the hell should that work?” I still don’t know the answer to that question, but it is a great technique which implies a personal and inward unfolding, perhaps becoming more and more who we are.

The technique goes as follows: Take a day after your birth and make that equivalent to the first year, 2 days – 2 years, 3 days – 3 years etc. So if you are 33 you would look at where the planets were 33 days after your birth and interpret any connections they have with your birth moment. Weird – right? Some planets obviously move quicker than others, such as the Sun and the Moon. In my experience the Moon, which moves the quickest, gives amazingly accurate timing of events. Using this technique, which is called secondary progressions, when the Moon (mothers) exactly progressed to Pluto (birth and death), my mother died. Now this combination could have indicated other transformations (Pluto) too, but the symbolism was astoundingly accurate, even to me. Astrologers come across examples like this every day.

What this technique actually implies is that what you experienced each day after birth will come back to you symbolically each year of your life. I would love to research this further, but that would mean a long-term study. If parents have kept baby books then it could be done, but you can see the enormity of it. It would be fascinating research though. It also suggests that babies who have a difficult start might have tricky first years. It also implies that if something happened to you say 30 days after your birth that your 30th year would be interesting. I have no idea if this is true, all I can say again is that the technique is useful. One other thing it implies is that the sign that you start off being will develop over time into another one. So if you are born at the beginning of June you will be a Gemini, and you will grow towards the next two or three signs over the next 100 years. So depending on how long you live, you don’t change your birth (Sun) sign from Gemini, but you will incorporate Cancer, Leo and possibly Virgo qualities.

There is some precedence though in science for why it might work. It has to do with something called self-similarity. The definition of this is an object that looks roughly the same (similar) on any scale. So fractals are an example of this. If you don’t know what fractals are, have a look at some examples. They are beautiful. The most famous one is the Mandelbrot (who coined the term) Set. It means that the closer you focus in on something, the more you can see that its parts have a similar shape.

Importantly for this technique, David Bohm, a famous quantum physicist, also suggested that this works for time too. That each moment contains all the past and all the future. That time has a depth – which might go some way towards fitting in with this model. This is a difficult concept, but if you want to read about it follow the link below to a lecture, which became an article by Will Keepin, in the Mountain Astrologer magazine. He can say it much better than I could.

So there are three different ways that we unfold into the final version of ourselves. Astrological techniques offer a framework to co-create our future…at the very small level (us) and – if fractals are anything to go by – up to the cosmic level.

Faye Blake-Cossar

Interesting Website of the Month

Will Keepin, a mathematical physicist, wrote an article for The Mountain Astrologer – Oct/Nov 2009 – original article and update. It is long but I found it fascinating. Well worth a read if you want to see how quantum physics fits with astrology.

Quote of the Month

“In some sense man is a microcosm of the universe; therefore what man is, is a clue to the universe. We are enfolded in the universe.” David Bohm, Quantum Physicist, 1917-1992.

Gemini 2011

Interesting Website of the Month

Quote of the Month

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