Decoding the Self Allows for Accepting Our Differences
It is like decoding the Self to be able to see your birth chart and your partners and then talk about it. So many misunderstandings have to do with being convinced that our partners are making a mistake or doing something we think is wrong when they are only following their own unique internal energy, their most dominant elements or functions.
Carl Jung’s depth psychology fully acknowledges that we are born with predispositions. I don’t think there are any other psychological systems that even consider this fact. While we can rewire or reprogram our software, we cannot change our hardware. An Aries has to behave bravely as an Aries to become authentic. A Cancer who is not mothering others is not a real Cancer. As we grow up, we try to be what others expect of us to get along. To fit in, we compromise who we are. We wear a mask (what Jung called our persona) and then we feel more and more alienated from ourselves. Self-estrangement is the result of trying to conform and adjust who we are in hopes of being approved of by the collective. Well, in the Aquarian Age, we can all NOW embrace the freedom to become our authentic selves.
Knowing about your own and your partners birth chart will give you a means to decode the self for each of you. Our astrology based on our birth time, place and location geographically is like a map to our soul or a blueprint of our psyche as it describes our dominant signs (archetypes) and typology. The four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water which correspond to Carl Jung’s typology, he called psychological functions: Sensation, Thinking Intuition and Feeling are inside of us, expressing through us. Everyone is inherently some combination of these four elements as well as our style of behavior that he called introvert and extrovert.
More importantly you can extend to each other understanding, not to mention the ease of communication that will eliminate the confusion and disillusionment when someone is behaving in ways that are different from ourself.
Many times our partners are not who we thought they were when we married them. This generally happens because in the beginning of all relationships, there is so much projection going on. This is inevitable as this is how the psyche is able to see itself — first through exteriorization and then through withdrawing the projections consciously. No easy task mind you, but with both partners willing to do so, it is definitely doable and much more conducive to healthy relationships. Together we can each learn to relate to what is unconscious in ourselves and our partners through our shared life experiences that we take the time to reflect on. We can do this together.
“The unexamined life is not worth living,” is a famous dictum supposedly uttered by Socrates at his trial for impiety and corrupting youth, for which he was subsequently sentenced to death. The dictum is recorded in Plato’s, Apology. (source: Wikipedia)
Our Shadow Can Be Our Opposite Functions
A significant way to see our Shadow is to recognize that our unconscious will seek out our opposite functions where we are distinctly lacking. No one is born perfect. The Alchemists would say, “What nature leaves imperfect, we perfect.” What they were attempting to do even back then in the approximately 12th through 17th centuries was to see through their own attitudes and behaviors. They recognized they were born with imbalances that could be transformed, corrected, and creatively developed by doing what they called ‘the work.’ Alchemy was also utilizing Astrology but described in terms to keep it hidden and was considered to those initiated to be a sacred art. In their world view, we each contribute to the evolution of the cosmos and to the Godhead as we become more and more conscious through self-honesty, integrity, and moral responsibility. This introspective work took time, patience, and effort just as any relationship that fully embodies the tenants of true love takes time. Loving our real self also takes time and it takes ‘others’ to see through ourselves.
As Pittman McGehee, D.D. in his book, The Paradox of Love says, “I alone must become myself, but I cannot become myself alone.”
In his book, Psychology and Alchemy, Carl Jung equates a temenos to a magic circle, which acts as a ‘square space’ or ‘safe place’ where unconscious content can be brought up to the light of consciousness. In understanding this concept, we begin to have the awareness that our deep and committed relationships with significant others can be like a temenos where we get to work through the difficult and arduous work of becoming conscious of our totality (shadow, anima/animus, Self). He further explains:
“… since he has succeeded in establishing a protected temenos, a taboo area where he will be able to meet the unconscious. His isolation, so uncanny before, is now endowed with meaning and purpose, and thus robbed of its terrors.”
—Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, paragraph 63
When we have a temenos with another, everything we do or say to them is sacred. Trust is earned, it’s not had as a gift. Unless there have been years of experiences that contributed to the security and safety of each person, it cannot be given freely. This kind of safe container will only take place with a few individuals in our lifetime. A marriage or a dear friend that goes the distance or a life coach, astrologer or psychotherapist can enter into our soul’s work as we know without a doubt, they have our back and we have theirs because as we grow and change in their presence, they too are being changed. As Jung said, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” “You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.”
-Carl Jung, Modern Man in Search of a Soul, page 49
Not everyone has the means to undertake Jungian analysis (which is expensive and can take many years), but we can facilitate the individuation process significantly by learning the astrology of ourselves and our partners, intimate friends, siblings, parents and children. When we know the dominant psychological orientation in an individual and what inner drives are motivating them, we will learn through our experiences the significance of our interrelated energies as we are all are connected archetypally. The ancients viewed our cosmos as one unified organism.
As unified organisms, it follows that the more self-knowledge we have, the better it will go with and for our loved ones. I believe the days of being satisfied with stagnant confusion and naive illusion in our love relationships are over. Knowing another and having them really know us will be considerably improved by the use of Astrology and depth psychology. This can be learned by consultations, taking courses, reading for ourselves, and keeping our hearts open to going into our unconscious as that is what it takes. In our quest for autonomy and authentic being, this is what is necessary. What we each know about ourselves is just the tip of an iceberg of what is in our vast unconscious.
In becoming 70 years old this year, I can look back to what I knew at 30, 40, 50, even 60 compared to what I know about myself now. From this perspective, I look forward to 80 and so on. It does not end; self-discovery continues and every bit of life both positive and negative had and continue to have meaning. In Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections he describes his life changes from 2 years old (his first dream) to old age. As Edward Edinger says in the preface of his book, Ego and Archetype, “Starting as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, he discovered in his patients and in himself the reality of the psyche and the phenomenology of its manifestation at a depth never before observed systematically.” Jung also made it clear that evolution will occur only as one individual at a time is working on their own personal development. It is the individual’s efforts at self-responsibility that will change the collective psyche of man.
Rebeca Eigen
Rebeca Eigen, an astrologer for 25+ years and author of The Shadow Dance & the Astrological 7th House Workbook specializes in relationships. From every day decisions, to critical life-altering moments, Rebeca shares with you her practical wisdom and guidance for your life’s journey in becoming who you are meant to be.
https://www.shadowdance.com/
