One of the key ideas gifted to us by C.G. Jung was INDIVIDUATION. In simple terms, INDIVIDUATE is about becoming who you were meant to be. It’s about the further unfurling of your SOVEREIGNTY as a soul, an individual, distinct in one’s personhood.
At the same time, we may understand that in reality, we’re all connected, all swimming in the ocean of the one Source (a true Piscean dream). However, the reality on this planet is predicated on a distinct physicality that makes room for a variety of experiences. It’s as if the ‘Big Spirit’ wanted to experience many different lessons, so it ‘split itself’ into trillions (upon trillions) of ‘little selves,’ to see and learn from all differing perspectives.
Life is a big scavenger hunt, and each one of us has the mission to bring back the missing clue for this universal game. Thus, our job isn’t to be someone else, but more fully ourselves. Cause when you die, the question won’t be why you weren’t you So-So, but why you weren’t Fully You.
INDIVIDUATION is not INDIVIDUALISM.
Individuation is a scary concept for those who perceive the world from a locus where the GROUP (i.e., family, tribe, clan, nation, etc.) is the only path. As one threatens to leave the group, the sanctity of the group is in jeopardy, and they must be stopped by all means – necessary – consciously or unconsciously.
Individuation is about the Self with capital S. Individualism is about the little self, the myopic egocentric self that can’t see beyond its own belly button. Seen in this light, it may seem fitting to judge one’s attempts at individuation as turning inward to understand who one is as selfish, thus separating themselves from the enmeshment of the group.
As a culture, we have a very immature understanding of a group and its dynamics. What we know of groups is more akin to the enmeshment of the mob mentality, where there are no boundaries of self, but instead, there’s a regression to a more primitive and unreflective stage.
A society made up of truly individuated people would function much better because an individuated person is more resilient in accepting the uniqueness and the difference in the other. The reason being is because Individuated people aren’t threatened by the individuality and difference of the other. They’re better able to understand it as complementary, not oppositional. They’re able to accept and respect the SOVEREIGNTY OF THE OTHER.
US vs. THEM – a painful stage on the road toward Individuation
Healing, which means to become whole, is a spiral journey. Each stage is its own initiation, and we all have to traverse it in our particular way. Last December, I gave a class on the Astrology of 2022 and spoke about the dangers of MASS PSYCHOSIS, the more insidious pandemic of our times. Mass psychosis is more virulent when the majority is enmeshed and non-individuated – aka, they don’t know themselves. They can’t discern where the thoughts that grip them come from, and they are threatened by nuanced and ambiguous situations, which leads them to desire a return to ‘simpler times,’ and the past is always nostalgically ‘simpler.’
The enemy of MASS PSYCHOSIS is SOVEREIGNTY of the self.
Mass psychosis informs the strident activation of this culture war of US vs. THEM, in a time when what is more needed is a valuing of each other’s unique gifts and skills are the key to helping us work together towards solving the mountain of issues we face as a collective.
The mass psychosis we see possessing friend and foe in this tidal wave form is a symptom of centuries where SOVEREIGNTY of SELF has been maligned in a host of ways, including slavery, religious, governmental, and cultural doctrines, all rooted in a myopic view of our place within nature.
Look to the patterns in history, and you’ll then see the constant power battle between MY WILL vs. YOUR ABILITY TO BE YOURSELF. Religious conversions and wars are prime examples of that: my divinity is better than your divinity, and it will crush you into submission. But also see that with each power over, the seeds of trauma, resentment, and later the return of the oppressed rise in time to create further embattlement. The sins of our ancestors keep returning to us until they’re healed.
What’s unfolding now is also profoundly connected to the US PLUTO RETURN, as the country’s collective psyche faces the death battle between its delusions of how it sees and imagines itself and the complex and shameful truth of its unhealed past.
While this may be a heavily nuanced topic, I want to explore the idea of SOVEREIGNTY from the perspective of astrological houses.
THE FIRST HOUSE – I AM SOVEREIGN
How we frame ideas is key to how they spread or die on the vine. How they’re packaged will either inflame, madden, or heal. I feel myself ricocheting between deep despair, hopelessness, disappointment, and rage in light of the issue of Roe v. Wade. While there’s much to unpack here and more time to articulate it would be needed, I want to share some of my thinking process.
The presenting issue may be abortion, but at a deeper level, it’s about SOVEREIGNTY of one’s Self as expressed through the one vessel we have that holds our SOUL – the BODY. Enslaved people had no sovereignty over their bodies – no choice.
In looking at history, dominating bodies was the most basic level of domination. Our bodies are how we engage with and in this world; it’s our most primal vessel for our soul’s embodiment and experience of life in this realm.
I invite you to think of the astrological houses more like a building of many floors than a one-level place. Each house has many layers and meanings. We can’t go through all of them. However, we can touch on its core meanings.
In modern astrology, the first house is linked to the self, our projected image (aka how we show up on the stage of life), our vitality, and our personality. One of its more ancient names was THE HELM, the place of LIFE. Standing at the helm of my life, my sovereignty of body and self, I’m able to be an active and creative agent in this world. It’s a cardinal house, meaning it’s at the height of its power. It’s associated with the yang principle of FIRE, the sign of Aries and the planet Mars.
On a first-floor level, it points to the conditions of birth, the body, and how we present ourselves – our bodysuit. On a second-floor level, it’s about our consciousness of self and how we project ourselves in the world (i.e., our right to be here and take up our space). On a third floor level, the first house speaks to how we integrate our personality with our Self and respect our body as the vessel for our soul.
“The 1st house arena is the sphere of the self as an independent entity with the larger collective.” – Brian Clark
Whatever sign or planets you have in the first house will deepen and color how you show up in the world. But underneath it all, whatever the sign or planets, all will be spiced up by the Aries/Mars foundational qualities of this spoke of our life’s wheel. Because this part of the chart is the helm from which we start the courageous journey of self-discovery (Who am I?) It’s our particular brand of courage in how we cross the thresholds of our lives. It speaks to what WE STAND FOR. It’s how our individual courage informs our ability to pioneer something and go on our own.
The first house is our SOVEREIGN REALM. It’s where we stand and say: I AM THE VESSEL FOR MY SOUL.
The seventh house stands as our opposite and complementary encounter with the other. It’s both our partners but also our OPEN ENEMIES, both of which challenge us in understanding who we are, what we are about, and how we engage in the dialectic of transformation.
A healthy relationship is respectful of the individuality of the other. It’s not about POWER OVER, but EMPOWERMENT WITH.
At our deeper levels, in light of the injustices being propagated right now in our society on others through the fear-based tactics, I see many Martian (as in Mars-themed) activated. Remember, Mars in your birth chart is how and what YOU STAND UP FOR. It’s our brand of courage and how we articulate our warrior selves. It’s also our ANGER and sense of BOUNDARIES TRESPASSED.
We can split hairs and get lost in the reeds of semantics, but the BELIEF WARS we’re living through are deeply related to SOVEREIGNTY – of self, of countries (i.e., Ukraine, anyone?), and becoming WHO WE ARE MEANT TO BE.
On sovereignty and the belief wars, we’re fighting
Back in 2020, when we talked ad nauseam about the Grand Trifecta of Jupiter, Saturn & Pluto in Capricorn, a few mentioned how the astrological dance of then related to Martin Luther in the 1500s, who kickstarted the break from the hegemony of the Catholic Church’s rulership of Europe. It was the seed that grew into Protestantism and the subsequent religious wars that ravaged Europe, including the English Reformation. Those volatile times where the BELIEF WARS raged on for many decades have a resonance now. I see many historians alluding to similarities between our current times and the Reformation in England. For history lovers, it may be time to learn more about those times.
And let’s not forget, a deadly seed took hold in Europe around those fervent times: the Witch Hunts. The killing times were mainly a bane for women (although there were men too) who in one way or other stood apart from the unindividualized and enmeshed culture of the times. The mass psychosis of power over mentality (i.e., authoritarianism) always kills more than pandemics will ever do.
Sovereignty is at stake in our times – it’s not just how we rule our bodies, but how we can keep our privacy (watch out for when Pluto enters Aquarius in 2023) and how we can co-habit with others in an ever-crowded world.
Photo Credits:
Main image: Mary Koval
Subsequent images: Brandi Alexandra, Rodrigo Gonzalez, and Stephany Lorena
Via Unsplash
