What I cannot control and What I can Nurture
I started learning astrology when I was fifteen. I got very sick and my mother sent me up the road to Marelna - a healer and my first mentor. She did some body work on me and then pulled out my chart and started reading it. I was instantly obsessed. I stopped her midstream and told her I wanted to read my own chart. She was peering into something that spoke about me in a way I had never come across. I wanted to have that view. Marelna's sage response was to let me to join her weekly teaching group. So every Tuesday evening I sat with woman much, much older than I, and they kindly tolerated this youngling who was determined that no-one was to read her chart but herself. That is how it started.
Astrology has always been on the side for me. I hid it away, from people and from entering my professional world. But people that found out asked me to read their charts, which I did of course. By my mid twenties I was getting referrals from a psychologist and he firmly told me I had to get professional, I had to charge money. So I started reading charts professionally - on the side - and built a client base. That is how astrology stuck with me.
Fast track to 18 years later and my adventures with astrology have taken another turn, into the system of Jyotish - otherwise known as Vedic astrology. Jyotish means the 'science of light'. That sums up astrology for me. It is a science - their are rules and a system, there is a language and code to be learned and maths to be done. And it gives light. You get an eye into something, you are given sight. The kind of lens I have been using has been Western based. Go back a long, long time and you will find both systems emerge in Greece and speak much of the same language. Now though the two systems have to be seen apart. I tried to blend them but my teacher (Richard Fidler) promptly tackled me on that. My first lesson was to learn to respect each model, they stand apart, yet come from the same foundation. So my adventure begins by dropping the system I know and fully entering into the Vedic landscape. That is the only way I know how - to dive into the deep end full on.
You will meet a lot of different creatures in this Vedic scape, but the animal under gaze for this post are the north and south nodes - I say animal because they are linked, they are one entity split apart. Firstly these are not planets, they are mathematical points where the sun and moon meet and oppose each other on the elliptic. That means they are always opposite each other in your chart. And if you were born on an eclipse then you have that node right on your character.
Usually in the western system the nodes are way below the status of planets. You look at them last. And when you do, you look at them as some weird reference to soul path - so you have to believe in reincarnation and other such things. This may well be true but I am more interested in what is happening now, this life. In the Vedic system the nodes are not quite but almost as powerful as planets. This creature can make or break a chart.
The nodes are Rahu and Ketu in Sanskrit. Sometime known as dragons head and dragons tail in the western system. Rahu is from the north and Ketu from the south. They are fierce and the mythology reveals some blood on their hands. They both give power and determination, and are often termed shadowy. Rahu more so. This node shows up the ambitious side of our nature. Ketu has ambition but it goes towards spirituality and other worldly experiences rather than worldly gain. These two masses of energy are given direction by where they are placed. They can't cast aspects - so they can't affect a planet or house other than the one they are in. But where they live is given huge force. So depending on that placement the same force could make someone a murderer and someone else a famous saint. You can get beauty and political success, money and power from Rahu, but these can go either way. It all depends on how that energy is cast into your life. Ketu can show a deep spiritual seeker, give wisdom, discernment and the ability to let go. Or it can throw you into compulsive addictions, madness, deviousness and insensitivity. Again, it all depends on how you use what you have.
Rahu and Ketu shows where we have little control - these forces are instinctual and primal. That makes things very interesting. It has made my life very interesting. My daughter has Rahu in the first house, next to Saturn which is exulted. That makes for a strong personality. She has huge determination, her will is strong and indomitable, sometimes meeting my will head on when I have to say no you just cannot touch that or eat this or dive into that. And in a different moment I watch as she masters a skill she has been adamantly working on for the day, her will directed towards working the mystery out. She does not give up. This child has work to do this life and I will do all I can to support her to use that energy well. Of course her chart says many other things and many of these parts are intently gentle and sensitive. And this energy does not stand alone. Her Rahu is next to Saturn which in the first house shows great discipline, patience, asceticism and self-containment. But I know with this Rahu I need to give my child scope and let myself be tested around letting go of control in the right moments. I need to let her find her way and she tells me when I try to help too much. She likes to do things for herself and is willing to work hard to solve her problems. All of this makes for a beautifully vital sharing of life with her.
Both these adventures have just begun. Both teach me everyday about what I cannot control and what I can nurture.
