Imagination: Tropical Zodiacal Signs and Zodiacal Constellations

Now that Neptune has come home to (Tropical) Pisces, it is my hope that imagination will once again flourish in the practice of astrology. As an interpretive art of synchronistic occurrences, astrology can again be free of the unimaginative and restrictive expectations of scientific determinism. For example, some sidereal astrologers, along with non-astrology critics of Tropical astrology, have pointed out the fact that Zodiacal constellations no longer line up precisely with their Tropical Zodiacal sign counterparts. With science's expectation of precise correspondences, they dismiss our wondrous art.

What are these critics missing? Imagination! Astrology is the embodiment of multiple images. We have four different fascinating elements, each in three different states (modalities). We have a Zodiacal band of creatures seemingly natural (ram, cattle, crab, lion) and obviously mythic (centaur, sea goat, two fish bound together by common chord). Astrological imagery continues with mythically-named Planets, Zodiacal degree imagery (Sabian Symbols). etc. This imagery intertwines not only within a given chart, but is also interactive with the imagery of progressed charts, transiting planets, synastry, and so on. Added to this complexity is the relative free will of the relatively conscious individual.

Under such circumstances, the non-imaginative mind can only sidestep befuddlement with constrictive keywords and such. Our Souls, peeking out from behind our charts' imagery, are not only not respected, our Souls are not even seen at all. Science has no Soul. Science abhors Art's subjectivity and relativity, the stuff of Soul-making. The sky without Soul is the sky of modern astronomy. Science-oriented astrologers seem hell bent on destroying the interpretive sky-art of astrology by trying to turn it into something less than it seems to be for many of us.

But what of the imprecision of Tropical astrology's Zodiacal signs and their namesake constellations? The art of astrology uses metaphor, analogy and such. Science has little use for such techniques, because a modicum of imagination would be required to wield them. Imagine a people very much at home in their home country. Perhaps they are Italians in Italy, Africans in Africa, or the Irish in Ireland. Now imagine that those people were forced to move away from their homeland. Is there not something of Soul that has carried over from where they were? Just because these people find themselves in a new and very different place, under a different sky, do their lives become entirely the stories associated with the new sky? Do not Souls turn to imagery in their new nation? Do not Souls vivify their nation with imagery, and thus thrive in i-magi-nation?

I hope to see many of you at UAC in New Orleans in May, our first UAC under tropical Neptune in Pisces.

As Taj Mahal sang, "Time to leave your yesterdays, your yesterdays behind, And take a Giant Step outside your mind."