Despite growing up with a deeply hidden yet intuitive feeling that I was a cosmological being I was not open to astrology nor did the environment around me support the concept of it.  At some point in my studies of various healing arts I became aware of a simple concept:  if we can all agree that the position of the planets (specifically the moon) has an effect on the tides then it stands to reason that since human beings are roughly 70% water then the position of the planets has to have some effect on the tides (or water) within our bodies.  

Directly after that I came across a book called Astrology, Psychology and The Four Elements by Stephen Arroyo.  I wholeheartedly recommend it as a great place to wade into the subject.  Previously I had no idea that Jung, Freud, Kepler, Francis Bacon, Benjamin Franklin, Lord Napier and Isaac Newton– all of them– were “astrologer-scientists.”  Newton studied math in order to “test astrology!”

Arroyo’s book is probably the best book I have read as a distillation of astrology and its principles, and it excels in connecting them to the actual elemental energies themselves (earth, water, fire, and air) in order to interpret oneself or others.

I think the seminal point I took away from this book was in Chapter 6 “Humanistic Psychology & Humanistic Astrology”…page 45, “…the entire emphasis in a humanistic approach to physical or psychological “states of disease” changes from knowing what kind of problem a person has to what kind of person has a problem.”  That shifted my outlook tremendously and has incredible implications on how we might treat people going forward.

If I had to do it over again I would study astrology as much as I could.  My sense is that the subtle forces of the planets around us are not so subtle and I believe it is to everyone’s advantage to understand more about this.  In the blog section I will continue to recommend books, astrologers, websites etc.