Alice O. Howell: FIRE Light, Life, Love
Dear Friend,
T oday is a cold winter’s day, so to write of fire might be I heartwarming.
In Hinduism they speak of the three gunas, three ways in which energy manifests
itself:
Tamas: slowly, inertly, fixedly.
Rajas: actively, powerfully.
Sattva: delicately, mutably
In the Upanishads it is written of the Creator: “His first works are bound by the
three qualities, and he gives to each thing its place in nature. When the three are
gone, the work is done, and then a greater work can begin.”
This applies to the four trinities of the elements as well. Each element has a
fixed, a cardinal, and a mutable sign. These signs share the element but manifest
it in different ways. A simple example in nature would be water as ice, as fluid,
and as vapor. All are water, but in different conditions.
There are three fire signs in the natural zodiac: (See Table E, p. 138)
Aries the Ram, cardinal fire
Leo the Lion, fixed fire
Sagittarius the Archer, mutable fire
Each one shows forth the element in a different way. It is agitated in Aries,
shines steadily in Leo, and is shared in Sagittarius.
To understand this better, you might meditate on the properties and underlying
processes of fire and fathom why and how it was considered sacred, in virtually
every culture, from earliest times. God, by whatever name, is the primal fire of
life, of pure energy, and the other gods in mythology, representing different
aspects of the One, become users of the fire—Hephaestus, Vulcan, Loki—or
they become thieves of fire, such as Prometheus, who brings it to humankind. So
the processes connected to fire are different at different levels, yet alike.
At the
very highest it is sheer energy, and at the level of physical manifestation it
flickers atop our candles and flames out of wood.
The story in my previous letter emphasized the generative process of fire. One
flame generates countless others without being diminished. It is like the sun
from which all fires and light, life, and heat come. All flames leap sunward as if
to return to their source, as spiritually do we. Fire is the only element of the four
actively to counter gravity. At another level, the same process is hidden in every
seed that grows, from which in turn myriads of others, down the centuries and
generations, have the potential to spring.
At another level, it is mythologically
linked with energy (nuclear fire) and lightning, the attributes especially of the
supreme gods of the Age of Aries: Indra, Zeus, Thor, and Lugh. (We’ll look
more at the Age of Aries in chapter 16.) The sun just is. Were it to be
extinguished, within minutes our entire solar system would be plunged into
darkness. In astrology the sun has an affinity to the fire sign of Leo, of which it
is said to be the “ruler.”
In this way, you might begin to see how astrological
kinships arise. You see a connection of Leo the Lion to the “King of Beasts,” to
supremacy, natural leadership, and superiority. And Leo follows its ruler as the
sign associated with the heart (ruler of the body) and the back and all those
things we discussed when we studied the Sun in Jungian Symbolism in
Astrology. The sign thus becomes the home of the Sun, and by extension, since
it is the fifth sign in the zodiac, it rules the Fifth House in the natural zodiac,
which happens to govern an individual’s creativity: physical children, love
affairs, and artistic endeavors. The quality of fire in Leo is “fixed,” that is to say,
it shines steadily and with natural inborn authority and generosity. The Sun never
takes back its rays. It shines on all, “the just and the unjust,” and this is the
essence of the sign.
When you begin to place the different planets in that sign, each will react to the
essence of Leo differently and according to the psychological process it
represents. For example, a person with Saturn in Leo may have to deal with
issues surrounding love or authority perceived in a negative way: either lack of
love in childhood or, in some cases where love was given, the child could not
receive it, convinced inwardly of its own unworthiness.
The key is love, or
suffering through resentment and anger, especially if Saturn should afflict the
Sun or the Moon by difficult aspect. Jupiter in Leo would be just the opposite.
Here the person is resplendent and able to “shine” on one and all. The
individual’s nature will tend to be optimistic, generous, and such a person will be
able to display himself or herself.
Remember, I am not implying causality but am simply saying that this describes
the way the person will be likely to process experience. Psychologically, Saturn
in Leo yields “the Emperor,” the actor, the one who projects himself a little
larger than life, a ham, if you will. The danger here would be a tendency to
inflations and deflations: life is not just a story—it becomes at least an epic.
I had a friend, an accomplished astrologer, with this configuration. Sixty years
ago, we were walking down Fifth Avenue in New York, and he was boasting
about his prowess.
I teased him about his conceit, whereupon he stopped and
turned to me and said, “Alice, if you really knew me, you would know that I am
the humblest man of your acquaintance!” “See?” I grinned. He strode off
furiously, no doubt aware of his Leo propensities.
If all this sounds too complicated at this stage, don’t worry! It will make sense as
we go along. My purpose here is simply to begin to demonstrate the way that the
signs show “how” the planets will most likely function.
The sign your Sun is in determines whether you are a Virgo, a Scorpio, a
Capricorn, and so forth. So in interpreting a chart, one would look immediately
at the location of the Sun. Its essential nature of “being” and “creating” will be
modified by every other sign but Leo. Leo is home for the Sun, just as Cancer is
home for the Moon. Wherever the sign of Leo appears in your chart, which
could be in any of the twelve houses, the Sun will be the “ruler” of that
department of life, and you will take a special interest in matters pertaining to
that house.
For instance, if you have Leo rising and its ruler, the Sun, is in the
Ninth House, you would be interested in understanding and expressing matters
concerning philosophy and religion; in the Fifth House, in children and creative
expression, and so on.
Psychologically speaking, one’s essential and deepest identity springs from the
Sun because it is the only true star in the solar system as well as in the psyche.
All else reflects that inner light. The entire system of both zodiacs is generated
by the Sun; the planets, including our Earth, orbit that center. Only the houses
take their measure from the Earth. It is helpful to point this out to a client who is
feeling overwhelmed by a complex or a depression. Either of these may
temporarily eclipse or adumbrate that inner light, but they can never annihilate it.
Even the ultimate suicidal destruction of the body cannot quench that light, any
more than darkness alone can extinguish a candle. Some might see a
resemblance here to Jung’s idea of the Self, for the Sun in the chart is a focus:
the entire chart, that unknown area of the “circle,” points to the unfathomable,
unlimited mystery of the totality of the individual psyche. Like the therapist, the
astrologer can describe but can never define the psyche.
Although mythologically fire was generally thought to be phallic and masculine,
hermetically it was considered to be androgynous: its flame was masculine, but
its light was considered feminine. Perhaps this explains the fact that in some
cultures, whose languages discriminate gender in nouns, sometimes the Sun is
masculine and the Moon feminine (French le soleil, la lune), or sometimes
reversed (German die Sonne, der Mond). In Gaelic both are feminine. This is
interesting because symbolically “light” is associated with consciousness and
illumination. She is the “woman clothed with the Sun,” the anima mundi, and
her light is the light of nature, of Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia. This intimate
relationship of masculine and feminine in fire and light is the primal and
ultimate coniunctio where each is the other, one in power and delight. Thus the
element is also associated with a cosmic and creative love, God’s love, which is
“beating in our heartbeat twenty-four hours a day.” ~Alice O. Howell, The Heavens Declare, Page 74-80
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog
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