RG: A number of years ago I was surprised to hear you say you'd never actually looked at your children's horoscopes—not up to that point, anyway. I found that intriguing, because I couldn’t recall any other astrologers who could say that.

 

LH: Well, I think having a child is like being handed a seed. And you plant it in the ground and you see what happens, and I'm more interested in finding out what kind of a plant it is then trying to analyze the plant before it's even sprouted. So I just thought it was more of a mystery, and more respectful to them, to "not know too much." It was a matter of honoring them enough to show themselves to me before I saw them in my own way, through a particular filter like astrology.

 

RG: So you wanted to experience their essence unmediated by an intellectual construct?

 

LH: Exactly. I also knew it was a fabulous tool and that I would use it if I needed to. And I have, and it’s been very helpful.You were raised in Europe and only later moved to America, which obviously gives you a somewhat different perspective on our culture than most Americans have.

 

RG: The other day you mentioned about the ability of people to "start over" here and how it's different from what you saw in Europe. What did you mean?

 

LH: It's the whole "land of opportunity" idea. There are fewer second acts in Europe, but you really can start over again in America. There's a sense of renewal, a can-do spirit you hear so much about here. The employment rate here has changed quite a bit in recent years, obviously, but there still really are opportunities here. It's an attitude thing among the people: if you want to try something, Americans are generally going to say to you, go ahead and try it, good idea, go for it—that kind of a thing. Whereas in Europe they're going to tell you where you're going to fail. I realize that's a generalization, but it is the main reason why I live here.I also think this underlies the kind of astrology America has given birth to, the self-actualizing approach which views the horoscope not so much as a straightjacket but more as a springboard for one's potentials. When you look to the "old school" astrologers in Europe in past centuries, and even more so as you go East to India, it's more fatalistic, and also more cut-and-dried in terms of the various meanings for the planets and their placements. So I think that American attitude has affected even our astrology.

 

Of course it's been a risky progression in some ways, because that growing individualism can indeed become more narcissistic and greedy, it can become too self-centered. And part of growing up and becoming wiser for this country might be to reflect on things like, “What price did we pay for that narcissism in terms of slavery or no health care,” for example, where you don't care about others so much because “self-actualization” is the main mantra. Social awareness is much greater in Europe, where you know you have a responsibility to your fellow man or woman beyond the conservative notion that it can all be done through charity.

 

RG: You've conducted workshops with figures like Laurence Olivier's son, Richard, and actor Mark Rylance, on the stage of Shakespeare's Globe Theater in London, where you've blended theater with astrology. What has been the purpose of bringing these disciplines together?

 

LH: Astrology is an extraordinarily complicated language. So over the decades I've been experimenting with various metaphors and visuals and have ended up with theatre imagery to introduce archetypal astrology to my clients in just a few minutes. I begin my readings with the image that the horoscope is a circular stage where the planets are acting out a play, and each one of them is an archetypal character. It's as though the heavenly bodies dropped onto that inner stage at the moment of one's birth and we took a snapshot of it from the rigging above, freezing that moment in time. The aspects tell us who is arguing with whom, who is kissing whom, and so forth. There's a story going on in every chart, just as there is in a real play. The planets are the "who," the aspects are the "what," the signs are the "how" and the houses are the "where." Of course the notion of blending astrology and theatre isn't new. There is a branch of astrology called Experiential Astrology and as the name says much of the powerful work done by those who have and continue to work in that way is about acting out. I use some of these techniques in workshops but blending astrology and theatre is an idea, a core metaphor that feeds my complete view of how archetypal astrology works. We already see hints of that merger between astrology and theater in ancient times and the application of these ideas became clear to me when I was invited to work on an archetypal approach to some of Shakespeare's plays.

 

When you read Shakespeare you soon notice that there are many astrological references in the plays beyond the obvious “star-cross’d Lovers.” For instance there is that lovely line in As You Like It where Beatrice says: “A star danced and under that was I born” or in All's Well That Ends Well Helena says “…you must needs be born under Mars.” The idea was that if a person is to fully appreciate Shakespeare a basic knowledge of astrological terms is necessary. Second, using an archetypal approach now, we asked questions such as what a “jupitarian” (speak: Jovial) Henry V might look like, versus a martial or saturnine one. This was especially fun when we worked with the actors in the group. This latter imagery also became the basis for my book Planets in Play, and I expanded on these ideas in a series of slide shows along with sound illustrating the primary astrological archetypes. I use these when I teach, and I’ve put them on my website as yet another way to help people see the archetypes in their lives. I love to create visuals as a stimulant for imagery, and it’s actually one reason for why I went to architectural school. I have always had imagery and ideas in my head that I’ve wanted to share with others, and finding new ways to make things visible has continuously inspired me, I find it enriching. Unless you can see Venus in a chocolate mousse, I believe you are missing her full essence.

 

RG: You mention about there being hints of that merger between astrology and theater throughout antiquity, which is a fascinating subject in itself. Over the years scholars have talked about how the roots of modern theater can be traced back to the religious dramas and rituals of ancient times, going all the way back to the cave dwellers, possibly. But I think an argument could even be made that nearly all of the major religious rituals of history—be they Hindu, Egyptian, or Christian—were astrological rituals in a way, a kind of early "astro-drama," since they were acting out the seasonal or planetary energies of the time. Just look at Christmas, for example, and how it was associated with the Winter Solstice and the earlier celebrations of the Sun's return after the darkest point of the year.

 

LH: Celestial timing is something that's been a part of society for millennia, though we don't usually realize it. And I would add that in ancient times the only thing that was 100 % predictable was the cyclical movement of the heavenly bodies, in particular, the Sun and the Moon. So all seasons, all order, all structure, all calendars, were indeed organized after that. There's nothing else we could be sure of. Hence all rituals, anniversaries, and celebrations were based on this certainty. That's what we knew, that's the "glue" that kept it together.

 

In an extraordinarily unpredictable world the sense that there was some kind of order was a huge factor. The only thing we could know for sure was that Mars was going to come back to that point in the sky, or that the days would start growing longer at a certain time of the year. In that way we organized time; the saturnine sense of structure came to us by following the planets. And all these rituals and celebrations were a way of organizing our world, as well as a way of aligning ourselves with those great cycles.

 

RG: Astrology also arose out of the sense that each of those cycles and celestial markers had its own unique meaning, with the rituals and celebrations being designed to honor, perhaps even exploit those distinct qualities.

 

LH: Right. This was all a way of bringing meaning to our lives, not only by organizing our world but by aligning our lives with the meanings of the cosmos. That's even acknowledged in a work like Ecclesiastes, in Chapter 2 verse 3, where it talks about how there is a time for planting, a time for dancing, a time for loving, and so forth. Different times are better for some things than others. Response-ability means responding to what's happening. I think the ancients had a more subtle notion of time than we do. For instance, the Greeks distinguished between chronos and kairos. I would translate that into quantity of time and quality of time. The first of the two is easy because that is how we typically think: time measured in quantity. I have little time or much time. The notion of kairos is much more subtle. It implies that there are different kinds of time. Time has a particular quality. We still have remnants of that notion in our language when we say, for instance, “this is not a good time for me.” That is an assessment of the quality of the moment that we are in. Astrology, in essence, is a tool to measure and describe the quality of time. The more we know about the quality of a moment the more we can decide what archetypes we wish to express then. Ancient celestial observers were keenly tuned into the qualities of the moments the planets marked off.

 

RG: Speaking of what's happening: as of this moment (June of 2010), we're in the midst of some powerful planetary patterns, especially the emerging t-square involving Uranus, Saturn, and Pluto. I'm curious to get your take on what's occurring on the global stage right now?

 

LH: The wonderful thing about mundane astrology (the branch of astrology that studies historical trends) is that it explains everything you see happening in the news. And that is extremely reassuring, because the one certain thing about transits is that they all have an expiration date, a shelf life, so to speak. That's a key idea, because it's saying that "this, too, shall pass.” That transitoriness is a natural part of the cyclic nature of existence. (After all, we do call them "transits," don't we?!)

 

But as for the t-square, since Pluto is at the critical point of this current configuration, for me this period is really about the emergence of Pluto in some new way. It's a new awareness of what I call the "dark feminine." We are collectively horrified as Mother Earth in her magnificent force is bleeding and by that I mean we see devastating earthquakes, mining accidents and of course the Gulf oil spill At some point even Mother Earth won’t take it any more and Pluto is her messenger. I don't believe the Earth is coming to an end; that's a concept that's existed as long as human beings have been around; it's the fantasy of end times. But there's constantly this reminder that we've got to do something about how we're using the resources that come from Mother Nature. This is about embracing that dark feminine, the yin in the world.

 

What Pluto's asking everybody is, where is your deepest "hole"? And what are you trying to fill it with? You know, we're going to that level of depth where people have to understand their deepest psychological fears. For example, if they're getting plastic surgery, maybe it's their fear of death. What are you really trying to fill? If you're consuming stuff, if you're filling yourself with busyness, with cell phones, text messaging, and so on, what are you really afraid might happen in the stillness that Pluto offers?

And it's this slow emergence of a realization that the pillars of our old ways—such as Science, Religion, Justice and even Capitalism—are no longer working. We are finding out that these pillars were not made of stone but of wood. Science can't fix the leak in the Gulf, religion doesn't have answers for an increasing number of people, "justice for all" seems increasingly distant, and capitalism itself isn't looking so rosy at this point. Pluto to me feels a lot like termites eating away at these wooden columns of our temple. It's very slow and scary, you don't realize how much has crumpled until the roof is practically on top of your head. These times are challenging, of course, and they also offer a challenge.

 

RG: The subject of your first and co-authored book was the Nodes of the Moon. If the horoscope reveals the different characters on one's inner stage, where does the North Node fit into that picture?

 

LH: First, I define the personality as the way we express our psyche. Simply put, who we are as the sum total of all these inner parts. Besides the personality, and separate from it, there is this part of us that I call the soul. The soul uses the personality and the person to experience certain things in this life. The soul is immortal and travels through many lives. I’ve used the imagery of an endless train track to illustrate the path of the soul through many lives. It comes from somewhere and goes somewhere. We then imagine that we are born at a specific place along that track. This is the South Node, where the soul enters the body. It’s where you’ve come from; it’s where you already have a bunch of Ph.D.'s under your belt. So it's a comfort zone where you like to hang out, simply because you know it.

 

But the North Node is where that train track is heading, it’s a point of new learning. The house position is actually much more important than the sign, because the house tells you where, and the signs have to do with how. For me, the North Node is an area of your life that you came here to get to know better. The concept is as simple as that and also as complicated and rich as that. It’s about getting to know life better.

 

RG: To "know life better"—towards what end, specifically?

 

LH: Several things. I find that no matter how much we try to avoid our calling—this exploration of the house indicated by our North Node in the context of our whole chart—we end up hearkening the call at crucial moments. The rewards, and what I mean with “getting to know life better,” is that we feel emotionally fulfilled, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned. For lack of a better term, a sense of happiness. But in a larger sense the Nodes relate to the notion of reincarnation and how there is this sense of direction we are heading in. There is actually a direction on the soul level, which is not personality-based but soul-based. Particularly when we're lost, the solutions never really come from the personality level, because the ego personality doesn’t see the big picture. Of course, people always try to solve it from the level of the personality—that's what we do in therapy, that's what we do in every self-exploratory type of process. But the gift of astrology is it can take you outside of the personality, outside of personal history, outside even of the chart to this more esoteric spiritual direction. Follow the Yellow North Node! (Laughs)

 

Here’s an example from Alignments: Charlie, a middle–aged manager came to see me many years ago because he “wanted to changes things a bit.” His North Node is in the fifth house. Before he arrived I was wondering how he may be expressing his creative side. His North Node was also in Taurus and I had thought to myself that perhaps his creative pursuits were practical and even artistic. Charlie arrived looking extremely sad and gave me much more information than I asked for. He complained about his seemingly endless responsibilities: his co-workers, his demanding wife, his kids in college, you get the idea. I asked him, “Charlie, if you had no responsibilities and could do whatever you wanted, what would you do?” He looked at he floor, sobbing bitterly now, and said quietly, “I would sculpt.” The place that Charlie felt comfortable and spent most of his time in was his eleventh house. The corporation, the group, the Big Idea and helping others do well. He wasn’t paying enough attention to his soul’s compass and this was enormously painful.

 

RG: The notion of the "soul's compass"—that's interesting.

 

LH: To me, the North Node is the description of a place that you came here to explore. It's not a job description, it's not a lesson plan, it's the description of a place. If for instance you learn that your calling in life is to go to Paris, you can say, "No, I don't like the French and I'm not going there"—or, you can spend your whole life learning the language, falling in love in the Spring, going to every museum you can find, eating all the food you can afford in Paris, and that would be a different way. And the key is, Paris doesn't care, because Paris is just a place. So the calling has no vested energy, it is simply a place that sits there, and your job in life on a soul level is to go and explore that. This example shows you how the calling differs from the archetypes on your stage. You can't ignore your inner characters but I have seen many people in my practice who have become completely disconnected from their calling.

 

Now, there are two things about the calling that are crucial. The first is that nobody wants to do it! I have yet to meet somebody who gladly tiptoes through the tulips to their calling. (This is presuming there are no planets sitting on that axis, which changes things considerably.) So the first thing is that nobody really wants to do it. They may long to—that's different. But they'll usually fall back on their comfort zone, as indicated by the South Node and the house it's in, simply because that’s what they already know.

The second point that I've learned about the North Node is that exploring it is a lifelong process. So the day you can say, "I truly and fully understand Paris," to go back to my earlier example, that's the day you can close your eyes and stop breathing, because you're done for this lifetime. The fact that you're alive means you're not there yet. The exploration of your North Node is not something you do when you're nineteen, get a certificate for, and then you're done with it. It is a lifelong task.

 

Reprinted from The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/March 2011