Marelon Bjorkaes at astrologyguild

Healing With Astrology, Part 2

Part One of this article revealed how important a person's core beliefs are in creating or attracting life experiences. It was explained how negative core beliefs attract negative life experiences and positive core beliefs attract positive experiences. It was further revealed that we all vibrate out frequencies according to our core beliefs.

Those of us who vibrate out positive frequencies will bring more positive experiences into our lives. Those of us who vibrate out negative frequencies will attract more negative experiences. What happens when we have a mix of the two? Well, we get a "normal" life with its stop and start quality: we attract some positive stuff and some negative stuff. Some of our dreams never get off the ground at all, while others get started and then fizzle out or fall to pieces, and a few succeed.

What is really, really hard to understand is that we are attracting it all, the good the bad AND the ugly, through what we vibrate. And most of what we vibrate is determined by our core beliefs.

What is interesting and useful is that as astrologers we can have a special insight into core beliefs through the chart! Planets can be looked at as potential core beliefs and their aspects and placements can give important clues about what kind of core beliefs a person might hold.

There are no hard and fast rules but the following suggestions give fascinating information:

SUN - core beliefs about our self-esteem and self-worth - do we like ourselves or are we self-critical or have overly high standards for ourselves?

MOON - core beliefs about our need for security and emotional nurturing. Do we believe our basic security needs will be met or do we need to wrap ourselves in layers of protection?

MERCURY - core beliefs about communication - is it difficult or easy? How far do we go with it - how much do we communicate, do we keep it superficial or get into deep subjects? Do we believe facts are important or do we hold opinions regardless of the facts?

VENUS - core beliefs about assets and resources: money, possessions, our comfort, our right to enjoy ourselves. Do we feel it's all right to feel pleasure or do we restrict ourselves or repress our needs? Do we feel others will deny us or delight us?

MARS - core beliefs about being an individual, about asserting ourselves and our rights. Do we have to fight to be acknowledged or do we easily ask for what we want? Do we take action to achieve our desires or feel thwarted and frustrated all the time?

JUPITER - core beliefs about Truth and Reality. Intellectual values - do we believe that God or Source is good, kind, on our side? Or do we feel Source is unreliable and cannot be trusted or even is downright harsh and demanding? Beliefs about our own personal rights, legal and moral.

SATURN - beliefs about the power of the outer world - is it overpowering so that we feel small and insignificant or do we have a chance to become part of the power structure to whatever extent we wish? Do those in power squash us or can we align ourselves with them successfully? Can we work competently or do we feel useless and incompetent?

URANUS - core beliefs about individual freedoms and a need to be unique and different: is it okay to be innovative or is it too scary to stand out? Do we delight in being a free thinker or suffer because we never feel that we fit in? Can we enjoy being our own person and making our own choices or do we feel we must conform?

NEPTUNE - core beliefs about our spiritual nature and our connection to Source. Does God listen to us or are we abandoned here on earth by an uncaring Divinity? Can we make the world a better place with our contributions or do we desire to escape from the horrors of the world? Do we have creative ability and inspiration or are we all just suffering from too much imagination?

PLUTO - ooooo! This is a REAL juicy one for core beliefs: sexuality, ability to own personal power, control, emotional mastery, need to dominate others, paranoia - there is endless fun here! Seriously, Pluto core beliefs center around the use of power; emotional, sexual and physical. Who influences whom? Who has power, who abuses it and who gets overpowered or abused? Do we own our own capacity for violence as well as our passion or do we shy away from these and project them onto others? Do we use the intensity of Pluto to process emotional events or do we use it to repress feelings and memories?

This is just a hint of the material available for those who understand both astrology and core beliefs. It is possible to look at a chart and begin to theorize about POSSIBLE core beliefs both negative and positive. It gives a whole new perspective to aspects and placements by sign and house.

Imagine Mars square Jupiter. The square suggests the core belief will tend to be negative and that some particular incidents in life will have contributed to this core belief. If we take Mars to be one's desires and Jupiter to be rights, we can deduce that this individual might have some challenging beliefs around exaggerated personal rights - in other words, they might have beliefs that they have more rights than others are prepared to grant them, and others might have reacted with violence (Mars) or moral censure (Jupiter). A few carefully worded questions (No leading the witness here, you want their own words to describe their experience!) will usually glean the specifics for you. You might hear beliefs like,
- I (Mars) never get enough (Jupiter can have exaggerated expectations)
- I have to fight (Mars) for everything (Jupiter)
- Religions (school, politicians) (Jupiter) get in my way. (Mars)
- Everything I try to do (Mars) gets tied up in red tape (Jupiter)
- I (Mars) should (Jupiter) be allowed to do whatever I want.
- I have a lot of anger (Mars) at God. (Jupiter)
- I see God (Jupiter) as harsh and demanding (Mars.)

If we take the same two planets but put them in a trine, we could anticipate that the individual has quite different beliefs:

- there is always enough for everyone
- whatever I want (Mars) comes to me pretty easily (Jupiter)
- I harmoniously (trine) identify (Mars) with my religion or philosophy (Jupiter
- I believe (Jupiter) in my own way (Mars)
- I look for the positive in the world.
- I bring out the best in others.

What if we look at a Sun/Pluto square, opposition or other challenging aspect? Some likely negative core beliefs could be:
- I never get enough attention (respect, notice)! (Pluto can exaggerate expectations as much as Jupiter!)
- I have to impose my will on others before they impose their will on me.
- I have to force others to recognize/honor my creative talents.
- I have bottomless insecurity about my worth.
- I erode my self-esteem by always blaming others.
- Other people always seek to block my creative expression.

If we put these planets into a trine or sextile we might find core beliefs such as :
- I am intense about my creative expression.
- I have so much power within that I can afford to be generous and gentle in my leadership.
- I am a natural healer through optimism and positive self-esteem.
- I have the power to do anything I want.
- I naturally manage and master my ego and my self-confidence.
- Other people recognize my leadership and lend their help and support.

We could look at Saturn (obligations, restrictions, pessimism, realism) placed in the 7th house and think along the lines of a person having core beliefs around relationships that feature an emphasis on duty, responsibility, even burdens, or the person could simply be very practical and realistic, not expecting romance and roses.

Naturally a chart is more complicated than these examples: Sun may be trine Jupiter, indicating very positive core beliefs around self-esteem, but square Neptune, suggesting that Neptune's spiritual values might see the Sun's self-esteem as that nasty ego that needs to be killed. Other aspects and the house and sign placement of the Sun and the other planets all add layers of potential core beliefs.

The above only hints at the possible core beliefs but the hints give you the general idea: a "stress" or "challenge" aspect tends to symbolize negative, disempowering core beliefs and a positive or harmonious aspect tends to symbolize positive, uplifting and empowering core beliefs.

What this means is that as astrologers we have a special form of insight into the POTENTIAL for negative core beliefs and if we trace aspects back to life events, we may be able to enlighten a client as to how they ended up forming those core beliefs. I have Jupiter square Uranus exact to within 9" in my chart and Dr. Zip Dobyns, when she saw that aspect asked me to find out what happened when I was 9 months old. My mother told me that at that age she had been carrying me when one of her younger brothers playfully gave her a push. Unfortunately she had been about to walk down a set of stairs and was off balance. She ended up dropping me and half-killing herself trying to catch me. She was never clear if she was able to break my fall for she suffered such a shock and such a bad fall herself, that she couldn't remember any details.

But what happens when an infant, totally reliant on a parent for safety, is suddenly dropped? Whether or not an injury is sustained that infant KNOWS that they have been in a threatening situation. All threatening situations to an infant are life-and-death - there are no gray areas. What it means is that at a very early age the infant has an experience that they are not safe - and from that the infant forms certain beliefs which predate verbal awareness. This creates a body awareness of lack of safety - in this instance an awareness of imminent disaster that can happen without warning. It is perfectly described by Uranus (shocking, unpredictable events) square Jupiter (world view, trust in Source). It might be suggested that the Jupiter involvement could have meant the child actually sustains no real injury but it could also be suggested that the real injury was energetic/psychological/unconscious. In other words the injury took the form of the creation of a negative core belief which then went on to continually colour this life.

Did I believe life was safe? No. Did my life continue to exhibit completely unpredictable events that turned my life upside down? Did I feel that life would, every so often, just drop me on my head? Yes to both. EVERY time a transit hit that Jupiter/Uranus square something awful would happen, something that no matter what I did, seemed completely unpredictable, completely beyond my power to anticipate or soften or prevent. This continued until I learned about core beliefs and in fact, was so deeply ingrained that it is only fairly recently that it occurred to me to see if I could heal this core belief.

I'm taking a wait and see attitude before I pronounce the aspect "healed" but I can report that this spring, Saturn triggered that square and while I can report some definite frustration there were no shocking events. Mars recently triggered it and the worst that happened is that I noticed an inordinate number of aggressive and impatient drivers around town! Perhaps more importantly I no longer carry a deep sense that something is going to blind-side me any minute. Theoretically, without that core belief, I am no longer vibrating out the (unconscious) expectation that life will blow up in my face, and therefore I should no longer attract events that make me feel like the Universe enjoys taking pot-shots at me! I would not go so far as to say I've turned that square into a trine but I do believe I'm on my way there!

What is interesting about this whole experience is that it was not a life event that triggered my urge to heal this, it was the realization that the chart held a key to some core beliefs which I hadn't worked on yet. The chart became an active tool for healing!

Part Three, next month, will discuss some healing modalities and how they might work to heal various problems shown by chart aspects and placements.

Healing with Astrology Part I

Healing with Astrology Part II

Healing with Astrology Part III

Marelon Bjorkaes

Healing With Astrology, Part 2

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