Marelon Bjorkaes at astrologyguild

Healing With Astrology, Part 1

I came into healing after more than 20 years as a professional astrologer. Astrology is a wonderful tool for illuminating strengths and problems in an individual's life and I nearly always feel I have done something significant for clients when I explain them to themselves. I give clients permission to be who they are at their core, which they have often sensed for years but have not known how to approve of. I provide validation, explanation, and important insight into internal conflicts and difficulties. I nearly always take clients from a state of bewilderment to a state of empowerment.

However I have long been aware that insight alone doesn't offer a path to healing. When the client walks out of the office, they are armed with ideas about new approaches and techniques to use in their lives, ideas which are valid but limited in their usefulness. For example, exactly how does it benefit a client with a history of sexual abuse to learn that they have several Pluto squares in their chart and they need to learn how to use power in a balanced way? Even when explained with compassion, this clearly does not heal the trauma. And there is a lot of trauma out there - astrology clients feel very understood when they have a chart reading and this leads them to tell their stories. The magnitude of pain that people live with, is staggering to me. Astrology, for all its gifts and wisdom, clearly has limits when it comes to resolving this pain, or significantly improving the quality of people's lives.

All the years I have been studying astrology I have also been studying other metaphysical arts, including meditation, enhancing my intuitive abilities through the study of tarot, and taking courses such as Silva Mind Control. I didn't know it at the beginning, but I was building a foundation for myself as a healer. I was learning about chakras, auras, meridians, affirmations, visualization, homeopathy and herbs. I discovered that affirmations and visualizations absolutely did not work for me, and I wondered why not. The answer came in the form of information about negative core beliefs.

Core beliefs are the foundation beliefs that we hold. If we (often unconsciously) hold a belief that the world is unsafe, that is a core belief because many other beliefs are built on its foundation - beliefs about not trusting that our needs will be met, that other people cannot be trusted, that no good deed goes unpunished, that things will always go wrong for us, and so on. All the beliefs that we hold, and we hold thousands, (some practitioners contend that we hold millions of beliefs,) are built on a foundation made up by our core beliefs.

Core beliefs are vitally important in our lives because it is the core beliefs that determine what our brain notices, and what our brain notices in the world determines the quality of our lives. If I hold basically positive core beliefs that life is safe, that I am loved, that Source or God is good and has my best interests at heart, then my brain will tend to notice all the good things around me and filters out much of the "bad" things. So my core beliefs will be continually validated and strengthened. In contrast if I hold mostly negative core beliefs, my brain will notice mostly "bad" or negative things around me and those negative beliefs will be strengthened over the years of my experience. What is tragic about this situation is that if I pick up negative core beliefs as an infant and child, they will set the tone for my whole life UNLESS I find a way to take the power from them! I will be a prisoner of negativity, endlessly proving to myself that what I believed all along was right, but making myself and my life miserable in the process.

Core beliefs can be changed. Sometimes just listening to an inspired person of vision will do the trick - thus the success of motivational speakers. Sometimes a life-changing experience will forever override negative beliefs - thus the "conversion" experiences of many religious people and seminar attendees. Occasionally a shock or trauma jolts an individual out of their negative mind-set and starts them on a constructive path.

However all of these are exceptional circumstances that not are always available to the ordinary person. What I wanted was a way to shift core beliefs that was gentle, effective and reliable. I searched until found methods to do that.

Holographic Repatterning was a healing system from which I learned some vitally important principles. The most important one is that we humans emit vibrations and the nature of the vibrations determines our life experiences. The vibrations that we emit are definitely linked to the core beliefs that we hold. Interestingly enough, Holographic Repatterning teaches that we can emit vibrations from any body part and we need to find out where in the body negative core beliefs are being held. Then we can apply a healing modality to that body part or parts and in doing so, we immediately shift the quality of the vibrations being emitted. Once we shift the quality of the vibrations, the person's outer life experience also shifts! I'd like to add that this is a gross over-simplification of Holographic Repatterning, which is a complex healing system. My point is that HR taught me about vibrations being emitted by the body, even by specific body parts, and that shifting the vibration creates positive changes in a client's life.

I loved HR and still can highly recommend it as a healing system. However I had personal issues with two problems: HR is practiced using six manuals - far too much to memorize. Therefore the HR practitioner of necessity spends a significant part of the healing session thumbing through manuals and writing down beliefs and phrases. This breaks the healing energy between client and practitioner. I felt this break in healing energy was acute and I wanted to find a system that would maintain that energy.

Eventually I found DNA Healing (also known as Theta Healing and Orion Healing) which did essentially the same work as HR but with a very simple protocol and no manuals or writing to break the healing energy. Later I also learned Emotional Freedom Technique, another fantastic healing method which, like HR and DNA Healing, works a great deal of the time with core beliefs. All three methods also will deal with physical illnesses and other types of problems, but if no healing is obtained, usually it is because there are core beliefs holding the illness or blocking the healing. All three methods effectively shift negative core beliefs and in so doing, shift the quality of the vibrations being emitted. All three healing methods have proven themselves to be highly effective with my clients, healing everything from difficulties getting along with an employer to emotional conditions caused by severe sexual abuse.

To come full circle, as fantastic as these healing systems were, when I was listening to my clients tell their stories, I was often conscious of feeling like I was standing in quicksand. A client can tell me they have an anger problem and they may even relate it to having a father that was a rage-a-holic. But if I am dealing with an anger problem, as an astrologer I want to know what Mars is doing in their chart! I want to see for myself what sign and house it is in and what planets it aspects, because this information refines my understanding of the client's anger issue.

If I find Mars is in the tenth house squared by Jupiter, I can talk to the client about how they are easily triggered by people who don't work quickly and effectively - it may be the first time the client realizes that it is these specific situations that trigger the anger that gets out of control. They will be fascinated to learn that Jupiter square Mars tends to blow their anger up out of proportion. With Mars in the tenth house, yes, it could well be something learned from the father. What is more important, however, is that we can start to work directly on the likelihood that they hold some sort of core belief that their anger either cannot or should not have to be controlled - Jupiter does have tendencies to "I have the right to do this" thinking.

This is just one demonstration of how knowing how to read a client's chart brings great illumination to a healing session. It is tempting to say it brings specificity, however sometimes it works in reverse: the client believes a problem is isolated to a single area of life but the chart reveals that the problem is multi-faceted and actually impacts several areas of life.

My practice today is mainly healing, however after identifying that a particular astrological archetype is out of balance, and talking to the client about that archetype and how it is experienced, clients often want to have their chart interpreted. Even if they don't, if I can see their chart, it adds much to the healing session. Knowing their chart deepens my understanding of the issues they are dealing with and tends to keep me non-judgmental. If I know a person has Pluto conjunct Midheaven, I will understand and can validate for my client why they seek intense experiences, and can, from that place of total understanding, lead them gently to seeing how their insistence on intensity in life may be the reason that they experience so much pain. Without their chart, I might easily form the opinion that they are crazy! Or I might, as a healer, have an agenda to bring them into balance, but that balance will be my notion of balance, not a balance that is suitable for them as an individual.

Con't in Part Two: Seeing the archetypes as potential core beliefs: each planet can be seen as relevant core beliefs and placement by house and sign, and aspects, gives more information about what impact those core beliefs might have!

Part Three: an overview of various healing modalities and their most appropriate uses.

Marelon Bjorkaes

Healing With Astrology, Part 1

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