Astrology Alive...

   ... brings together elements of psychology, group work, drama, music, ritual, and healing practice to make astrology alive!

Astrology Alive is a wonderful book. Through words, images, exercises, and meditations, Barbara Schermer invites the reader to experience his or her own inner cosmology. Providing a way for each of us to experience personally the underlying principles of astrology (The Law Of Correspondences--As Above, So Below), Barbara's work helps us to enliven our lives with astrology's transcendental promise. – Alan Oken, author of Alen Oken's Complete Astrology and Soul Centered Astrology.

In Astrology Alive Barbara Schermer brings the astrological chart to life in a way that few other writers have done. It seems destined to become the classic textbook on experiential astrology. It certainly deserves to be. -- Howard Sasportas, Center for Psychological Astrology in London.

Suggestion: Check out the Table of Contents and read the excerpt from Chapter One of Astrology Alive.

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CONTENTS

PART I

INTRODUCTION

1. INTRODUCING EXPERIENTIAL ASTROLOGY

• Planetary Theater
• Ancient Mysteries
• Astrology and the Gods

2. ANCIENT ROOTS : Nothing New Under the Sun

• The First Experiential Astrologer
• Ficino's Astrology and the Astrology of Ficino

3. MODERN ROOTS OF EXPERIENTIAL ASTROLOGY

• Dane Rudhyar and Humanistic Astrology
• Contributions of Jungian Psychology
• Experiential Astrology and the Human Potential Movement
• Spiritual Traditions and Transpersonal Psychology

4. USING EXPERIENTIAL ASTROLOGY

• Teaching Astrology by Experience
• Astrodrama and Psychotherapy

5. BIRTHING VENUS WITHIN: A Planetary Example

• Venus in Aries (Lighting Your Fire)
• Venus in Taurus (Enlivening Your Senses)
• Venus in Gemini (Communicating Your Love Stories)
• Venus in Cancer (Creating Your Sacred Space)
• Venus in Leo (Cultivating Self-Love)
• Venus in Virgo (Sorting the Seeds)
• Venus in Libra (Seeing Beauty)
• Venus in Scorpio (Recovering Your Gold)
• Venus in Sagittarius (Expanding on Love)
• Venus in Capricorn (Contemplating Love)
• Venus in Aquarius (Liberating Love)
• Venus in Pisces (Surrendering to the Divine)

6. DO IT YOURSELF!

• Visual Arts Techniques (Venus/Sun)
• Using Imageboards to Explore Your Chart
• Using Your Horoscope as a Mandala
• Using Masks to Experience Your Chart
• Create a Healing Image for Balance
• Active Techniques (Mars/Sun)
• Reflective Techniques (Moon/Mercury)
• Transit Diary
• Keep a Dream Journal
• Using the Horoscope for Contemplation

7. ASTRODRAMA: PLAYING WITH OTHERS

• Astrodrama: How to Do it
• The Living Horoscope
• Suggested Variations of the Living Horoscope
• Astrodrama and Jung's Model of the Psyche

8. HEALING WITH THE POWER OF IMAGES

• Using Images with Clients
• Images for a Saturn Return
• Images for Saturn Transits
• Images for Uranus Transits
• Images for Neptune Transits
• Images for Pluto Transits

9. BALANCING YOUR DIFFICULT TRANSITS

• Kriya Yoga and Astrology
• Balancing: The Techniques
• Counterbalancing Saturn With Jupiter
• Counterbalancing Saturn With Mars
• Experiencing Saturn
• Counterbalancing Uranus with Saturn
• Counterbalancing Uranus: Other Ways
• Experiencing and Transmuting Uranus
• Counterbalancing Neptune
• Experiencing and Transmuting Neptune
• Counterbalancing Pluto
• Experiencing and Transmuting Pluto

10. FACILITATING GROUPS

• Tips, Techniques, and Skill-Building
• Starting a Group: The Preliminaries
• Group Dynamics
• Outline for Experiential Groups
• Astrodrama: Interventions

  PART II

THE PLANETS AND SIGNS

The Sun and Leo The Moon and Cancer
Mercury, Gemini, and Virgo
Venus, Taurus and Libra
Mars and Aries
Jupiter and Sagittarius
Saturn and Capricorn
Uranus and Aquarius
Neptune and Pisces
Pluto and Scorpio

 AFTERWORD
Experiencing Astrology Around the World

NOTES AND REFERENCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

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A Taste of Astrology Alive

Here's an excerpt from Chapter One of Astrology Alive. 'Hope you like it!

CHAPTER 1

Introducing Experiential Astrology

One of the truths of our time is this hunger deep in people all over the planet for coming into relationship with each other. Human consciousness is crossing a threshold as mighty as the one from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. People are hungering and thirsting after experience that feels true to them on the inside. Marilyn Ferguson. Aquarian Conspiracy.

Scene One: A young man in a red cape swaggers aggressively up to a large, robust woman. She holds her body rigid, arms folded across her chest, and stands her ground. In the background the Mars movement from Holst's "The Planets" blares from a hidden speaker. As if swept into action by the frenzy of the music, the young man tries repeatedly to force his way past his opponent. The more he pushes, the more the woman is unmoved. The "hotter" he gets, the "colder" she becomes. Curbing his frustration, he changes his tack, trying to seduce her with sweet words. "Come back when you're grown up!" she commands. As the scene progresses, a look of recognition flashes in the woman's eyes. She suddenly begins to understand the creative impasse she has experienced in her work as an artist during these weeks that Saturn has been squaring her natal Mars.

Scene Two: A group of astrology students are fanned out on a broad, newspaper-strewn floor, sensuously expressing, with fingerpaint on posterboard, the energy and character of the planet Jupiter. With sticky blue hands, they swirl and spiral through a series of grand, sweeping movements. They are obviously having great fun!

Scene three: Sitting in the center of a circle (her natal chart), a young woman is surrounded by the eager faces of ten "planets," positioned as they appeared at the moment she was born. One by one, they introduce themselves. Beginning with the first house cusp is her Moon in Cancer. Cuddling at the woman's feet, she coos, "I'm your Moon in Cancer. I'm shy, quiet. I like to pull back from the world to nourish myself. I love herbal baths, walks with my lover, and hugging my cat."

Each planet, after completing its introduction, begins interacting with the others, according to the aspects in the woman's chart. The Moon enters the circle joined by her Pluto in Scorpio. (The woman's Moon trines Pluto.) Responding to Pluto's influence, the Moon moves more sensuously, gracefully, passionately. Then comes a sudden interruption by an belligerent t Mars in Aries. (Our subject's Moon squares Mars). Taunting the Moon, he roars, "Don't be such a pushover! You're always giving in because of your insecurity and need to be liked. Who cares if they like you? I don't care if they don't!" The young woman's chart unfolds before her eyes, bringing with it the feeling that each combination of aspects produces in her unconscious. By the end of her living horoscope, she is deeply affected, entranced by her uniquely personal drama.

Scene four: In a gymnasium theater-in-the-round, surrounded by an expanse of window glass, the full moon is rising in the night sky. On the lawn outside, a procession of ten "planets," actors in costume, approach. Though many in the audience know no astrology, each planet, from the Sun out to Pluto, teaches and amuses, and presses each onlooker toward recognition and understanding of the psychic function within.

Scene five: With learning about the four elements your objective, you and your students have taken an overnight journey into a forest. To commune with Earth, the group sits on the ground, meditates, and imagines the strength of the earth flowing from the ground and into each still body. To experience Air, all climb to the top of a breezy ridge and take in deep, full breaths of the windy air. To encounter Fire, you scatter to fetch kindling and firewood and build a roaring campfire. To experience Water, you take the path to a hot springs and relax tired muscles as the the new moon welcomes you in the East

Scene six: A young woman contemplates the kaleidoscopically colored circle of images and symbols on the paper before her - a "birth mandala" of her horoscope. She has spent the last two hours in an artistic and reflective process to create this vivid, rich representation of her psyche.

Scene seven: An earnest young man, sitting in the center of his own natal chart, spine erect, deeply meditative, attunes to the planetary psychic energies within. He knows he has an upcoming transit of Saturn opposite his Sun, and he is about to perform a ritual he himself created to help soften and neutralize that imbalance.

Each of the above vignettes is an example of a contemporary approach to astrology that may be new to you: the field of experiential astrology These innovations in an ancient discipline show great promise in adding impact, depth, and meaning to astrology's already extensive repertoire. The chief defining characteristic of experiential astrology is that its methods offer direct participation in the vital energies symbolized by the horoscope. By taking the astrological chart off the page and into movement, encounter, art, drama, and dance, we allow not just participation by the intellect but involvement of the senses and emotions as well. While its methods can be studied, experiential astrology is in essence an adventure to be experienced!

My own personal trail of adventures began in 1979 while teaching a basic astrology class. We were talking about Saturn and its correspondence with old age. Caught up in a desire to get my message across, I stopped talking and just began to walk back and forth in front of the class. Beginning as a blithe young girl with a bounce in my step, I slowly allowed my gait and demeanor to shift toward middle age, a little restrained, more bent over, nursing some new pain in my back. Then, even more wearied by Time, I crept and staggered, until as an old crone, I collapsed in a heap on the floor, clearly dead. The effects of this two minute drama were palpable. For myself, in my attempt to communicate a planetary symbol I had actually envisioned my own death and had enacted it, thus having a taste of Saturn's bitter pill. And the discussion with my students that ensued after a hushed silence showed that their encounter with Saturn had been real, too.

Several months later, while leafing through a magazine, I spotted a photo of an exploding volcano. There was Pluto! - more clear now in my mind's eye than any verbal description could make it. Thus inspired with the recognition that images can teach the astrological principles, I spent that week pouring through a stack of old magazines, creating collages of images and photos for each of the ten planets. I put the "imageboard" I had created of Mercury in front of a group of new students. With no previous understanding of the planet Mercury, they told me what Mercury meant!

With these insights came teaching methods that brought a level of interest, energy, and sharing in my classes that I had noticed only fleetingly in my experience as a teacher and student in the traditional mode. Because my classes encouraged spontaneity and play, the students became more relaxed with each other and found it easier to be themselves. They were more inclined to "tell their own stories" and share their insights with the others. This created an environment of increased group participation, deeper sharing and intimacy.

Some time later I read an article in Astrology Now by Jeff Jawer about astrodrama and the work he was doing in Atlanta. In "Living the Drama of the Horoscope," Jeff described his first experiences with the acting out of individual aspects in the horoscope, for both teaching and counseling. He cites J. L. Moreno's work with psychodrama and the work of Dane Rudhyar as influences on his practice. Jeff's article gave me new inspiration and a host of ideas to try. He confirmed my own sense of excitement with the potential of an "interactive astrology" - an excitement that we shared, then as now, after ten more years of invention and discovery.

From 1982 to 1984 I convened a series of extended workshops in Chicago in which we weekly enacted the natal charts of at least two group members, astrodrama style. One particularly exciting group included two tall, strong, and handsome male students, one dark-featured and the other light, who were also superb dancers. Instead of using their voices to enact their roles (usually the Sun, Mars, or Jupiter) they danced the energy with their bodies! I remember one day while we were warming up in our Mars characters with John McLaughlin's, "Birds of Paradise" playing in the background, these two men exploded into the room running from opposite sides toward each other in great leaps. They were so Marsian the rest of us ducked for cover! Here was another way to enact the planets - Dance them!.

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