Review
by Suzi Harvey
Astrological
Journal, May/June 1997
"We
imagine our destiny through the Sun, but we experience our destiny,
our being in life, through the Moon."
This
book, Volume VI, is one of the latest productions of the new CPA
Press. The price may seem high, but in fact once you read it you'll
conclude otherwise, not just because of the inner content but also
because this is a high quality, exquisitely produced hard-back
which won't fall apart when it has become a well-loved and often
thumbed-through favourite. The author of this book is a well-known
London- based astrologer and lecturer/seminar facilitator who has
been teaching for the Centre for Psychological Astrology and the
Faculty of Astrological Studies, not to mention many other international
venues, for many years. She is known for her widely-read, acutely
intelligent and inspirational style, and this book, a transcript
of two of her seminars, is eloquent testimony to her reputation.
There is enough lunar knowledge, insight and experience in these
pages to keep any astrology newcomer or experienced student going
for quite a while. And the reason for this is Darby's gift of mingling
a wide range of intellectual content with direct and spontaneous
interchange with her audience, the result of which is a highly
readable next-best-thing to being there. Thankfully for those who
cannot attend seminars, Darby's quadruple Geminian wit, wisdom,
and "warm thinking" (thinking from the heart) has now been
captured in print.
Part
One is entitled "The Moon as Source" and it explores the whole province
of the Moon's mythology, psychology, and physiology. The seminar
traversed a wide landscape: Lunar goddesses, the Moon and its connections
with body, mind, and the dead, the Moon as significator of the mother/child
bond, lunar and natural rhythms, the Moon in the elements, signs
and houses, lunar aspects, and lunar transits and progressions.
In
the section on Mother and Child, Darby introduces the work of physicist
Danah Zohar, the author of The Quantum Self. Zohar wrote this
book while she was pregnant and so was able to avail herself of a
poignantly feminine, lunar lens. Darby shares Zohar's insights and
maternal experience of herself as both 'particle and wave', which
Darby, quite rightly in my view, suggests could be a metaphor for
the Sun and the Moon. Moon consciousness as 'wave' caused Zohar to
lose the "sense of myself as an individual, while at the same time
gaining a sense of myself as part of some larger and ongoing process".
Zohar's experience for me evoked the sense of lunar timing and lunar
'knowing', so different from the solar urge to supersede the slow,
binding processes of nature. This was a very vivid and beautiful
example (and typical of the stirring sketches throughout the book
which demonstrate theory) of the way lunar experience connects us
to a personal past as well to a wider historical past, to the rhythms
of nature and of other bodies and 'selves'.
In
the section on 'The Moon and Soulmaking' Darby brings in James Hillman's
ideas, especially focussing on Hillman's crucial insight that "soul
turns events into experiences" (Re-visioning Psychology). Darby writes:
"Undigested, unreflected events do not become real experiences. this
process of turning events into experiences happens through reflection
on the images that rise out of the events in our lives.. reflection
and digestion have to do with the Moon.. And experience has meaning,
and leads to meaning". Darby is emphasising a very important facet
of the Moon here, one that I have not seen stressed very often, and
it is about making emotional connections - making a relationship
- with one's life and the 'things' that happen in it; in doing so,
the quality of 'thing-ness' becomes a 'thou-ness' - related, meaningful,
the dots joined up to reveal a pattern. The fact of Jupiter's exaltation
in Cancer, Darby shows, is a poignant validation of this event-into-experience
lunar function. That we belong to a family is one of our first 'pattern
recognition' experiences, and it is at the root of and leads to our
continual urge throughout life to search for meaning.
These
ideas provide the basis for Darby's move into a study of the progressed
Moon, for, as she points out, from the moment of birth we are moving
further away, ever so slightly at first, from mother and "gathering
the events of life into experiences which become more and more your
own". Darby has a clear focus with the progressed Moon: "What I like
looking at is that where 'the Moon begins' describes what you and
your mother share, in terms of the heredity you have both come from.
You incarnate through her, and you are the next possibility of that
lunar heritage. That lunar heritage carries on, the heritage of that
family habit pattern carries on one more step, but at the beginning
she and you are so close- hardly a breath between you. But every breath
you take, the progressed Moon moves away, and so you are moving away
from her." Darby's words eloquently evoke the mysterious realm of
lunar process, and reminded of various Brothers Grimm stories which
weave images about lunar consciousness and activities such as baking
and fermenting, which are bound to a specific flow of time. There
is the story of the woman who must wait for some special event until
the Moon is full once more, and until then she spends the time in
some natural, rhythmic task, as do we all in our daily round, going
over the same ground again and again, only each time a bit differently
because we are in a different phase of the cycle. Darby's understanding
amplified by example and audience participation weaves a similar
matrix out of which the reader's comprehension can grow.
Part
Two is 'The Moon and its Cycles' which covers two main themes: the
Moon in relationship to the sun, and the progressed Moon in relation
to the natal Moon. Through a lively presentation and interaction
with her audience, Darby stresses a crucial point - one which bears
repeating (as I have done at the beginning of this review): "To achieve your
purpose, to let your Sun shine, to fulfill your destiny, you have
to do it through the Moon... the day-to-day activity and the daily
rhythm of your emotional and physical life provide the ground with
which you achieve your destiny." Darby then moves on to examine the
lunation cycle based on Dane Rudhyar's work. This section is excellent
for getting a real feel for working with lunar phases as they relate
to lunar progressions. Each of the eight lunar phases is explored
with care and attentitiveness, each coming alive with a colourful
personality and psychological significance. The dovetailing of the
progressed lunar cycle and the transiting Saturn cycle is also examined,
and I found this part extremely informative and useful. the audience
is fothcoming with many examples, and Darby responds with lucid humour.
Darby also is very generous with her own experiences and anecdotes,
and undoubtedly these personal stories and insights are the best
'teaching aid' one can ever have. The seminar then is rounded off
with an in-depth case study, following the lunar progressions and
events, experiences and achievements of a client/friend.
The
Astrological Moon is both an educative and enjoyable read. Whilst
it is packed with plenty of principles and accuracy and knowledge,
all the essentials for rigorous study, in fact it is its 'moistness'
- a distinctly lunar quality - that wets the imaginative appetite
and gets one reflecting again about ones' own Moon position and one's
incarnational habits of a lifetime. Truly a 'must' for every astrological
library.
©
Copyright 1997 The
Astrological Association of Great Britain
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