3. ASTROLOGY AND ALCHEMY

a. Secondary Progressions in Astrology

Secondary progressions are extremely easy to calculate with your natal
chart and an Ephemeris for the year of your birth. Or there are a variety
of programs online and for home use you can purchase.

Simply look up the day of your birth, then count forward one day for each
year of life. This conforms to the formula for secondary progressions 1
day = 1 year. This is an arbitrary, but useful, concept. Progressions
measure changes in the relationship of the earth to the Sun. Thus, the
first few months of life form an analogy to the unfolding of an individual.
For example, say you are born at noon on August 1. If you are now 35,
and wish to examine your secondary progressions, count forward in the
Ephemeris 35 days to Sept 5 of your birth year. Calculate the chart by
using the positions of the planets.

Pay particular attention to the new position of the progressed sun. Your
sun has changed quality as you have aged from Leo to Virgo. Dane
Rudhyar says the progressed sun depicts the "process of
personality-integration" which carries on after birth. This maturing
process of personality-integration" which carries on after birth. This
maturing process leads to fullness of personality. The moon will change
its sign in secondary progressions also. Mercury may change signs every
30 years or so, but the other planets will not change radically over a
lifetime. They may, however, change their house positions, marking
important life changes in personality or collective adaptation. All planets
in progressed charts indicate systems involved in co-operating with the
solar process of fulfillment.

Sun=integrative Will (personality fulfillment)

Moon=outer, concrete changes (cyclic phases of life)

Mercury=Attitude of mind to the Great Work of the Sun

Venus=emotional responses

Mars=power of spontaneous initiative

Jupiter=balancing, soul-revealing aspect of psyche

Saturn=lengthy transformative process changing structure of
consciousness

Uranus=sudden, transforming effect of subcon. processes

Neptune=dissolving of limits imposed by ego (metamorphosis)

Pluto=possible death/rebirth experience

Each degree of the zodiac has a special symbol (Sabian Symbol) which
may be contemplated during the year of the Sun's sojourn in that degree.
Consult Dane Rudhyar's Astrological Mandala for these symbols and their
meanings in psychic development.

Also, check the aspects of the Progressed chart, and read these as you
would for a natal chart. The effect is simply more short-lived.

b. The Moon and the Lunation Cycle in Astrology(top)

The luminous Moon has fascinated mankind throughout the ages. It is the
focal point for lovers and lunatics, alike. Basically, the moon symbolizes a
feminine, receptive attitude, and an emotional, fluctuating attitude.
Negatively, the moon can indicate moodiness, and changeability.

Astrologically, the moon is as significant as the Sun, or Ascendant. It is
given greater weight than the other planets, because its influence is felt
so strongly in all aspects of life. As the moon moves through its 28 day
cycle, it passes through several phases which define its ever-cycling
relationship with the sun. Most people are familiar with the distinctions
known as new moon, full moon, and quarter moon. There is really no such
phase as half-moon, since half the moon is synonymous with full moon.
Remember, the moon only shows 1/2 herself to us on earth; her other half
remains hidden in dark shadows.

Astrologers distinguish even finer distinctions in the phases of the moon.
These angular relationships to the sun are precisely defined. 1st quarter
= 0 to 90 waxing degrees; 2nd quarter = 90 - 180 degrees; 3rd quarter =
180 to 90 waning degrees; 4th quarter = 90 to Dark of the Moon. In
addition, there is a Gibbous Moon, which is a day or two before and after
Full Moon.

For Magickal purposes, the new moon is not equivalent to "the dark of
the moon." But actually begins when the crescent moon shows itself
(waxing). All operations for psychological development are done during
the 2 wks. of the waxing period, since a waning moon is considered to
dissipate one's magickal effectiveness.

Robert Hand has described the core meaning of the Moon as an
astrological influence:

Yin: Container, medium, environment, matrix, womb,
mothering, home; subjects as opposed to their rulers. One's
Ultimate Source; the Great Mother; personal past, childhood,
heritage, family, heredity, homeland; unconscious assumptions
and attitudes, instincts, hereditary mental patterns,
psychological patterns due to infantile experiences, emotional
reflexes or programs, psychic perceptions.(1)

The moon's placement indicates either feelings of belonging (positive or
alienation (negative). We are contained by the formative principle of the
universe, and our adaptation to our environment reflects in our
personalities. Understanding of our lunar aspects, which are largely
unconscious, comes through feelings and emotions.

Emotions function like reflexes, and are barely influenced by logical
thought processes. In this manner, they function like instincts. Many
psychics describe their perception of information as a "feeling" or
awareness. They are in touch with the continuum where "all is one."
This sensitivity to connectedness is a lunar quality.

The moon symbolizes patient waiting, or "creative submission" to the
fulfillment promised by cyclic processes. It is as important and effective
as the sun, but in a less-obvious and obtrusive manner. The influence of
the moon reflects into daily life, forming the matrix of personal and
collective history. Through its ability to calm or incite the emotions, it
influences the course of events on a grand scale. It influences behavior as
much as the logical thought processes of solar-consciousness.

c. Luna and the Albedo in Alchemy(top)

Luna represents the feminine aspect of the arcane substance.
As we have seen, she is linked to salt, to "white sulphur," to
silver, to the albedo, the feminine alba of the coniunctio. She
represents the cold, moist, corporeal, receptive but not at all
inert feminine principle in the psyche, and appears as sister,
mother, and bride of Sol. she is the "vessel" of the sun,
receiving and pouring out the powers of heaven, extracting the
energy of Sol as a power springing into eternal life. She
provides that sense of serene undulating movement, like the
moon's path on the night sea, and that gentle and serene and
soothing nocturnal light that enables us to see in the dark, when
the sun's power has set. When Luna is at her fullness - at the
plenilunum - she stands as the nocturnal complement to
masculine diurnal consciousness.

--Robert Grinnell/Alchemy in a Modern Woman

The Albedo is that stage of the alchemical work which is a phase of
"whitening" and "lightening" after the black depressive phase of the
Nigredo. It is the emergence of the feminine aspect of the Self or Holy
Guardian Angel. the Albedo presages the flowering of fulfillment.
Moonlight indicates that state of consciousness where one begins to react
emotionally to unconscious contents. In this phase elusive intuitions and
spiritual potential are made manifest.

Corresponding with Yesod, the Albedo is the first goal of the alchemical
work, reuniting a world divided into "mind" vs. "matter" through the
medium of psychic reality. Relevant symbols include the madonna, bride,
moon, dawn, and dove.

Experience and experiencer no longer matter as the "images
that yet/fresh images beget" release one from the nigredo of
personal identity into the mirrors of impersonal reflections.
This second whiteness is also not mere ignorance, a
disregarding insouciance of the world and its ways, which
results from psychic realities taking precedence over more
earth-bound perception that attempts to resolve psychic
difficulties either away from the world or into the world.
Albedo prefers neither introversion nor extroversion, since the
differences between soul and thing no longer matter, that is ,
are no longer imagined in the material terms of the nigredo. .
.the albedo is not only a state between but a condition per se.(2)

Hillman calls this lunar stage of the albedo "the emergence of
psychological consciousness, the ability to hear psychologically, and to
perceive fantasy creating reality."

It is this sense: that all occurrences must first be imagined, that they
begin as images, that the very cycle through which anything turns,
including ourselves, is a psychological process, that soul fantasies are the ground and seed in all we think and do, want and fear. . .the subtleties of soul are embodied in the mundus imaginalis by primordial persons, eternal archons, angelic essences who offer human consciousness a grounding in hierarchical principles, enabling a human being to recognize what is essential, what comes first, and what is of lasting worth. It is a place of truth. (3)

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