LETTER TO A PHILOSOPHICAL COLLEAGUE: THE BIOLOGY AND COSMOLOGY OF ASTROLOGY

By Deane Juhan

I have been entertaining some thoughts about the "How....?" of astrological influences, and it occurred to me to send them on.  They are not to be construed to be the only possible answers to "How....?"--I am aware that much more may be afoot here, but anyway, here they are.

Gravity is the most pervasive physical force in the cosmos.  Its predictable and calculable effects are the mainstay of astrophysics.  Perturbations in the field that cannot be otherwise accounted for are the whole basis for the theory of "dark matter," among other things.  Yet in spite of this universal acknowledgement of its presence and effects, no one has any idea of what exactly it is; it is different from all other fields we know about.  It defies one of the basic tenets of physics--that is, it exhibits instantaneous effects across all cosmological distances, with no linear time-relevant chains of cause and effect.  It links all masses together into a single mutually interactive whole everywhere and at all times.  And it cannot be captured by analytical instruments apart from its visible and measurable effects--unlike light, electromagnetic fields, and the like.  It is equally operative in stars, planet surfaces and interiors, and everywhere else.

By virtue of Earth's immersion in this field, within the solar system, the galaxy, and between all other galaxies, our organisms are acted upon by the astronomically complex summations of gravitational pulls that all of these masses exert upon us.  Our cellular fluids, structures and processes are warped and woofed by it in the same way that the moon produces tides, and by extension the way that the planets of our solar system create subtle tidal cycles of their own.  Our entire evolutionary history has been developed in this energetic matrix; it is the ocean in which terrestrial as well as aquatic life is continually bathed and pulled this way and that.  It is simply inconceivable that it has not been, and continues to be, one of the dominant influences on the development of all life.

Einstein opined the theory of the three dimensional dynamic curvature of space in order to in some way visualize the spatial topography of this field.  My own imagination does better with visualizing an invisible webbing that connects all masses, large and small--much like a fantastically complicated spider web, or the connective tissue matrix of our bodies which unifies all other structures and energy fields within us and between us.  Any tug anywhere in this webbing is instantly transferred to all masses imbedded in it, simultaneously and across the entire extent of the matrix.  "Pluck" any "strand," and the whole thing registers an immediate system-wide response--a tensegrity that is both biological and cosmological.

So...as the sun, moon, planets and galactic gravitational dynamics interplay with one another, the the shifting "stretches" of gravitational connections course thru our bodies, brains, auras and all the rest of us, down to our intercellular fluids, cell membranes, intracellular fluids, cell nuclei and DNA.  All molecular arrangements, in fact.  As these dynamics interact physically and energetically, they must certainly play an underlying roles in our psyches--emotional, cognitive and behavioral.

This idea does leave a gap between physical and energetic forces (I keep repeating this duality, but aren't they really the same thing?) and the concept of the archetypes in their more personal and mythic dimensions.  But just perhaps it is the mass, distance, spin and orbital vector of Mars or Jupiter or Saturn etc. that are translated in the physiology of our cells and our psyches into our consciously registered awareness and behavior, presenting themselves in our awareness as the tendencies, personalities and dramas that our minds make of the world.

None of this seems to me to in any way demystify the connection between cosmos and psyche.  On the contrary, it seems to me to unify them in a model that makes no real distinction between "matter" and "mind," and that includes all of their dimensions in an unbroken continuum of individual, collective and cosmic consciousness of which you and I and all of life is inextricably a part.  And the fact that these connections manifest over time as well as space is attested to by my own conscious awareness of the strings within me that have been plucked by virtue of our personal connection, which continue to reverberate in the manifold ways that identify you to me as the powerful and ongoing archetype of "intimate friend," regardless of gaps in time and space that have separated us.