The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘science of astrology’

I rarely use Tarot Cards. That’s mainly because they are so damned spookily accurate! They make me nervous. There was a spell when Kal was using the cards regularly, for himself and for others, and he found the same. He told me how it was useful for obtaining the kind of information about a situation that couldn’t be obtained (or would take a very long time to narrow down) with dowsing. So, I gave it a go. I learned a single layout, and then I used a couple of reference books to interpret the cards. One word – accurate. Those of you who may have tried this will know what I mean. This is not your “Sun Sign Astrology” tabloid newspaper kind of accurate. This is the “are you reading my mind?” type of accurate.

Of course Tarot cards are symbols, symbols of some human psychology, and there are levels of interpretation required to make something meaningful come out of a reading. Yet, whenever I have done it, and I can count the number of times still on one hand, I have been flabbergasted, nay overwhelmed by the pertinence, the serendipity, the degree of coincidence, however you want to term it. It was spot on. Whether for me, or for someone else. I have been told that I “have the gift” with the cards. Well, so did Solitaire (Jane Seymour) in the James Bond film “Live and Let Die” and look what happened to her! (Actually, what did happen to her, I can’t remember….?)

'Pick a card..any card ...(except that one)'

Why Druids should use Tarot

Good question. Sounds like a statement but it’s also a question – why should druids use Tarot, or any method of divination? Well, the druid revivalist culture seems to purport that there is some historical precedence for a link between forms of augury or divination and the druid class. The Romans (and where would we be without the Romans, with their aqueducts, laws, sewage systems….etc) included instances in their reports of Britain about the scrying and divining abilities of the druids.

Don’t let history (even if it was dubious political history) be your only guide, however. There are other sound reasons to adopt a form of divination. Is dowsing not a form of scrying, of obtaining knowledge from a gnostic source, that can easily be turned towards divination tasks too? Indeed it can. The humble dowsing rod can be used for many purposes, but the further away from dowsing in connection with the land the less credible the results feel to me. This may be a personal thing, however, because I admit to having used dowsing for divination, even if the results have always seemed less reliable and more likely to change. But then, that’s the future for you – always changing!

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Although I often notice the occurrence of synchronicities, which makes me smile to myself every time they happen, today seemed replete with them from the moment I awoke. Something was in the air. I am currently working away from home in Germany and so my normal routine does not apply, including not having my usual trinkets and trappings around me.

The first inkling I got that today was going to be different was actually late yesterday. I had been making arrangements with a colleague in a nearby office for us to meet up for lunch. She is part of my extended team, and this was a chance to meet the rest of her colleagues and make some valuable connections that might help me in my work, as they all have many more years experience than me. We had been Instant Messaging each other yesterday afternoon and somehow, during the course of the conversation, she hinted that she was a witch. Only hints, mind you, but it made the prospect of today’s meeting more interesting. Was she in fact a witch? Or just enjoyed all things ‘witchy’? Perhaps today I would find out.

That in itself set the scene for the day. In the morning it was raining steadily – not a good omen, as it would make travel less enjoyable. I set off to work on the train and arrived at the office only to realise I hadn’t got my usual cigarette lighter with me. Never mind, there was a colleague in the office who smoked too – he would have one. For the first time in two weeks he wasn’t in today. Never mind, I could ask someone in the designated smoking room for a light. I double-checked my bag – did I have a spare lighter in there? After a thorough search I concluded that I didn’t. I began to rehearse the German phrase for ‘Have you got a light, please?’ – ‘Haben Sie feuer, bitte?’.

In the middle of the morning I got up to go to the smoking room. I’ll just double-check my bag again. The first pocket I went to – there was a lighter! Eh? I had really searched it before, but here it was – straight into my hand. Odd. I gave it not a second thought, but went upstairs for a smoke. The smoking room is full of people sitting alone at tables or in small groups, and rarely if ever does anyone approach anyone else. Today, as I sat down a man approached me saying, ‘Haben Sie feuer, bitte?’. My eyebrows raised and I smiled to myself. I was going to say that! No-one had ever approached me before in the whole two weeks I had been there. Today – someone asks me the same question I was going to ask them!

I confirmed the arrangements for lunctime and joked with my colleague that, as it was now sunny she must have magically affected the weather for our meeting. She responded that a witch never tells her secrets, and I chalked that up to our previous discussion where the word has been mentioned before. Coincidence, I thought.

Midday arrived and I set off on the shuttle bus to the nearby building, a few miles away. I had never seen my colleague before, but a couple of weeks ago I had looked her up on the staff directory and thought to myself then, ‘You remind me of someone.’ I regretted not having refreshed my memory again before I left, and I hoped that she would recognise me as much as I recognised her, and that we would somehow meet up alright. I sat staring out of the bus window trying to remember who she was similar to, and then it came to me – her hair was like Kate Bush from her ‘Wuthering Heights’ era, when she first emerged onto the pop scene. That’s who she reminded me of! I sat back, satisfied that I should just look out for someone who looked like Kate Bush, and I was sure I would recognise her. Ten seconds later the German radio station that was playing stopped chattering, and with a jolt my ears pricked up: what was that introductory refrain from? Which song? The opening lines blared out in the confines of the small quiet bus:

“Out on the wiley, windy moors
We’d roll and fall in green
You had a temper, like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy.”

(Kate Bush - ‘Wuthering Heights‘, 1978)

I smiled a broad smile. Coincidence number two! Already today was shaping up to be a magical day. I took that as a good omen, and sure enough I met my colleague without any trouble, and we shared a lovely lunch time eating, walking, buying presents for my colleagues back home, chatting and meeting her team. I didn’t mention anything about her possibly being a witch though – it didn’t seem the polite thing to do – perhaps I was mistaken, and she was just using it as a symbol of her empowered femininity? Anyway, I left it unspoken. Later that afternoon I messaged her again thanking her for her hospitality, and again she dropped hints of things ‘supernatural’. Now I wasn’t imagining things!

Later in the day I was heading back to the apartment a few miles away from the office. A short train ride away. That gives me just enough time, sitting at the station and on the train, to read another few pages in the excellent book ‘Spirals: Patterns of Existence’ by Geoff Ward. I have nearly finished it now, so I picked up at the point where I had left off yesterday where he was talking about C.G.Jung and synchronicity. Aha, so of course it was uppermost in my subconscious this morning. I read about Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, who was trying to find a scientific basis for dream synchronicities and worked with Jung on the concept. Then suddenly the text changed tack. Now it was talking about Astrology, and not your Sun Sign tabloid daily guff about meeting talk dark strangers and making career choices, but as he termed it ‘serious’ astrology. Ward made a statement that really resonated with me, he says, talking of Dr Percy Seymour’s book ‘The Science of Astrology’ (2004) :

‘Seymour’s challenging view is that ‘serious’ astrology… is an attempt to understand our own internal schedules formed over long periods of time and which we inherit genetically. He thinks that the fluctuations in the geomagnetic field synchronise the internal biological clocks of the foetus which control the moment of birth. The ‘tuning of the foetal magnetic antenna’ is carried out by the inherited genes, and this to some extent will influence personality characteristics. The positions of the planets at birth do not alter what we have inherited genetically, but instead ‘label’ our basic inherited characteristics of personality. Cautious support for Seymour’s ideas has come from an unexpected quarter – no less than Richard Dawkins…’

Well, well. Dawkins. Arch-enemy of all things mystic. Is there any clearer sign of convergence between science and mysticism?

That quote was as far as I got when the train stopped and I had to put the book away. As I walked back to the apartment something was nagging me about that passage. It seemed awfully familiar….oh yes – I had written a draft in preparation for my fourth part of the year’s summary of findings only last night. In the draft I had written a paragraph about how this year, one of the most startling findings for me has been to discover that planets have an influence on myself and Kal. They actually affect our behaviour, and determine what activities are going to be more beneficial for us. I’m not going to spoil the draft post, but needless to say I had left it at that point, wondering how on earth I was going to explain that. How was I going to be able to justify that I had suddenly become a believer in astrology? From having rubbished it all my life, to now saying, ‘actually, there’s something quite profound in it.’

I had even gone further, for last night I had gone to the online Astrolabe program and had let it draw up (or ‘cast’ I believe is the correct term) my natal chart. It even gave me a small reading explaining the influences of the planets on my behaviour. I had no idea why last night I would do this. None. And anyway, I was truly all prepared to pick fault with it, just as I had done with so many newspaper and magazine horoscopes before, except that I couldn’t! It was absolutely accurate. Completely me. Now, I’ve also seen that Derren Brown trick where he gives 12 people the same horoscope and because of the way it is written they all think that it is them to a tee, but this was different. There was very little generalisation, it was quite specific and certainly would not apply to anyone else I know.

So, another very major synchronicity. I had been “looking” for some way to explain my new stance on the subject without sounding superficial, and Mr.Ward’s book kindly provided it to me on a plate, just when I could make use of it.

Today has been a day of witches and synchronicities, and it has been hugely enjoyable. I hope all our days are just like this too.

Gwas.

p.s. Here’s one of my personal favourite Kate Bush clips.