an essay by Lara Owen

“The greater the tension between the pairs of opposites, the greater will be the energy that comes from them.” C.G. Jung, “On Psychic Energy,” CW 8, par. 49

Transcendent function: A psychic function that arises from the tension between consciousness and the unconscious and supports their union.

Tertium non datur:The reconciling “third,” not logically foreseeable, characteristic of a resolution in a conflict situation when the tension between opposites has been held in consciousness. (See also transcendent function.) from The Jung Lexicon by Daryl Sharp, http://www.psychceu.com/Jung/sharplexicon.html

“As a rule it occurs when the analysis has constellated the opposites so powerfully that a union or synthesis of the personality becomes an imperative necessity. . . . [This situation] requires a real solution and necessitates a third thing in which the opposites can unite. Here the logic of the intellect usually fails, for in a logical antithesis there is no third. The “solvent” can only be of an irrational nature. In nature the resolution of opposites is always an energic process: she acts symbolically in the truest sense of the word, doing something that expresses both sides, just as a waterfall visibly mediates between above and below.” [C.G. Jung, The Conjunction," CW 14, par. 705.]

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Psychology, Symbolism, and Resolving Tension

In modern times it was Jung who first described the psychological nature of inner conflict and how this is mirrored by outer conflict. He thought the way through for humankind, the way to avoid mass annihilation, was for individuals to be able to creatively stand the tension of their own inner conflict and paradoxical nature. This would then relieve the collective tension that periodically breaks out in war.

Where does this collective tension come from? Is it a function of civilization? It seems that the more laws we create and the more rigid our social structures become, the more we provoke discord. Human beings can only bear so much control from the outside before rebelling, consciously or unconsciously. At a certain point, controlling people from the outside does not result in more harmony, but in fact, in less.

This is because we each already suffer from inner discord. This may be a natural part of being human. We relieve this inner tension in various ways, some of which are healthier than others. Using tools of psychological and spiritual development (such as observing one’s inner conflict with compassion), can enable us to come to terms with the paradoxes within our own natures, and this often allows the sense of inner tension to calm down and to manifest in creativity and other forms of positive outcome.

But without psychological knowledge and a conscious quest for wholeness, too much rigidity from the outside makes living unsupportable. And this is what we are currently creating: an impossible world. The suicide rate among young people is rising rapidly, as is anti-social behavior among the same group. Usage of anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication to ameliorate and suppress inner tension is widespread. The general level of tension is going up, not down, despite the advances of modern technology that supposedly free us from boring chores and repetitive tasks, and the absence of war in the immediate lives of people in the West (although the guilt from the wars being waged on our reluctant behalf probably generates a deep level of subconscious tension).

Each of us have core dilemmas that are hard to work out when confronted head on. We want to love well and live in harmony, yet find ourselves fighting, competing with, and judging other people. We want to live balanced lives but find ourselves over-extended and exhausted. We don’t want to be in debt but the cost of living and particularly of putting a roof over our heads means that pretty much everyone is indebted one way or another. We want to be kind to our parents, partners, and young children, but find ourselves impatient and irritable with those we love best. We say we want to be healthy, but can’t resist our desires. Over time we often grow out of these tensions, but then replace them with others, usually anxieties about loved ones and the physical body.

Perhaps all these tensions are at root existential, arising in the beginning out of the consciousness of death: unlike animals (as far as we can tell) we live with the awareness that one day our lives will cease, and we don’t know what will happen next. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche described this core issue that later Sartre named existentialism, and saw it as the intrinsic dilemma of conscious existence. The existential psychologists see existential angst as the root of malaise. Developing spiritually is a common sense tactic to cope with the impossibility of living with the tension of being alive in our current form for a finite period of time.

In dreams we attempt to resolve inner conflict, to bridge opposing ideas and concepts that produce tension in the conscious mind. In the dream state we experience the parts of ourselves that we suppress in waking life, and our dreams are often preoccupied with contact with those rejected elements through fighting, sex, or conversation.

Astrology can also be of help. Even though to the rational mind astrology appears ridiculous, in fact, there is a strong rational argument for its use as a symbolic system, (outlined below). In addition, experience tells us that considered use of its information helps us both to understand ourselves and also to navigate the times in which we live.

How Astrology Helps Us

“In nature the resolution of opposites is always an energic process: she acts symbolically in the truest sense of the word, doing something that expresses both sides, just as a waterfall visibly mediates between above and below. The waterfall itself is then the incommensurable third. In an open and unresolved conflict dreams and fantasies occur which, like the waterfall, illustrate the tension and nature of the opposites, and thus prepare the synthesis.” Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis, Collected Works 14 par. 705.

So what does this have to do with astrology? Well, astrology is one of our waterfalls. Jung wrote that the logic of the intellect usually fails us when we try to resolve a conflict. “The “solvent” can only be of an irrational nature”. Astrology works, yet is utterly irrational from an intellectual, logical point of view, (leaving aside the possibility that we may eventually discover that indeed the physical planets do affect life on earth). By analyzing astrology only as a symbolic system, with no physical basis, we can actually create a workable rationale for why it has been for so long a human tool for understanding the vagaries of life.

This ancient symbolic system acts as the “incommensurable third”. In looking up to the stars (above) we translate something unknown down to the earth (below). In applying our consciousness to the imaginal relationship between the sky and the earth, we open up a channel that allows for understanding and this in turn leads to a synthesis between our inner sky and inner earth, our essentially paradoxical nature. To varying degrees, we are all both male and female, logical and irrational, stupid and clever, adept and inept, thoughtless and sensitive, giving and taking, selfish and selfless. If we can’t tolerate the end of each paradox that we don’t like, then we are unhappy.

Astrology, just like dreams and portents, opens up the passageway between the conscious and the unconscious. And, like any apparently symbolic aspect of life, it can also be utterly literal, as can dreams. We should also bear in mind that perhaps reality is not divided into the symbolic and the literal, that this is just another of the binary constructs we create in order to attempt to understand the bizarreness of being conscious in a wild and unfathomable world.

The ancient tenets of astrology, from both East and West, can still be uncannily accurate in foretelling disaster and triumph and the big moments of life. But from that perspective, fate is relatively fixed and the personality finite. Twentieth century psychological astrology freed up and enlarged that perspective, seeing the planets as interior forces more than as indicators of fate.

However, to my taste, there is still too much literalism in astrology, including psychological astrology, and this keeps it relegated to the cultural sidelines. Quite understandably, rational people object when they hear someone say, “Well, I am like this because I’m a Capricorn”, or because I have Mars in Gemini, or the Moon in Pisces, etc. But when we see the birth chart as a symbolic portrait of a moment in time, as the seeding of a life rather than the be all and end all, astrology adjusts to match the freedom we currently enjoy for developing as beings, in all regards, within one lifetime.

As a 21^st century astrologer, I work beyond the split between symbolism and the literal world. I avoid thinking that astrology is a material reality while allowing for that possibility to be also true. The postmodern mind is able to hold more than one truth at the same time, and to fail to do so locks us into a worldview that is too limiting and now outmoded. However, in writing about astrology, it sometimes sounds as if I take it all very literally. This short essay is an attempt to describe the complexity that lies behind statements that appear literal, but are in fact much more loosely held. If it works for you, I recommend you read my astrological writings in the same spirit. Take the symbolism and let it work you, let it be part of your life-dreaming, a poetic experience of the interweaving of heaven and earth.

copyright Lara Owen March 2008 all rights reserved

Comments transferred from Planetary Energies

Lara laraowen.com	Submitted on 2008/12/20 at 09:12 I think that’s a really good point. And doesn’t that arise because the symbolic world and the literal world are seen as separate, so then symbols need to be interpreted rather than experienced. When we have a more open, non-binary, non mind/body split mode of attention, symbols are part of the fabric of existence and awareness, and have their own logic.
Dharmaruci astrotabletalk.blogspot.com	Submitted on 2008/12/20 at 00:39 I think we have over-intellectualised symbols. Of course symbols have meanings and connections that are useful to know, but fundamentally they point us to a presence, an energy that needs to be experienced. Like you say at the end.