This post is part of our June 2021 Starwheel Astrology and Healing Newsletter.
What is the nature of my ‘Self?’
This is a key question, and this bog/video offers you ways to find some needed key answers.
This video and blog is part of our May 2021 Starwheel Astrology and Healing Newsletter, and you can see all the links for the different parts of our May Newsletter and see all the charts on the May webpage in our Starwheel astrology website:
//www.starwheelastrology.com/2021-may.html
This question of ‘Who am I?’ is especially key now that, at the time of writing, we have entered a new Jupiter Saturn 20-yr Age which has some pretty fraught energies and big societal changes.
‘What is the Self?’
Our societies often promote such a shallow definition of our Self.
Spiritual pathways often promote such an invalid, formulaic sense of our Self.
May I ask you to pause, now to look how the current energies of this New Age are bearing down on your sense of your Self, now.
Here is the video Pt 1:
//youtu.be/YxFHNGWIjCQ
And here is the Pt 2 video.
We start of with a three-part model of our Self, that draws broadly on the Jungian model. I have a post-graduate degree in Psychology.
But do bear in mind that that further on in this blog, there is also key reference to the contributions that Western psychodynamic and also Vedic Astrology can make to the needed sense of our Self.
And there is key reference to some of the needed Shamanic dimensions of your Self.
And, lastly, there’s reference to the Buddhist and Vedic senses that, in a most important way, our Self and also this World are not fully ‘real’ are not the ‘ultimate reality’.
So, let’s start off by looking at three parts of our Self:
A broadly psychological sense of our Self is that there are three parts, three facets of the Self that are essential for us to develop our understanding about. These are:
Our Egoic Self
Our Unconscious Self
Our Soul
I’d like to look at these three in a bit more detail now:
1.
Our Egoic Self:
First of all, there’s our ‘egoic self’ that might be called our ‘Talker’.
This is the self that has been created by our scripts and definitions that are often imposed by our upbringing and by the society we live in. And note that our sense of our egoic Self might even be damaging or marginalizing to the other parts of ourself.
This is similar to the Jungian concept of the ‘Persona’.
To understand the Persona, imagine a ‘Map of the Self’. It’s a vast country – and in one corner of it is a range of Mountains.
Note that behind the range of Mountain is the vast land of the Self.
But see that in front of the range of Mountains, there is a little corner of land. This little corner is what everyone else calls your ‘self’. This is all other people see. And this can be what you actually define is your ‘self’.
But the truth is that focus on just this little corner utterly and damagingly ignores the vastness of the territory that definitely lies hidden away behind the range of Mountains.
Now this small-definition Egoic Self is actually the energetic interface through which we engage the rest of world.
It is that portion of ourselves that exchanges energy with others and connects with others – this little egoic sense of our self – of who we are.
It is analytical, superficially logical and verbal.
It varies as to how self-aware we are of the nature and the limitations of our egoic self.
And of course, it varies as to how self-aware we are of the other truly vast dimensions of our Self that lie behind the mountain range.
But this little egoic self is the part of ourselves that we normally think we are generally most aware of.
2.
Our Unconscious Self:
The second dimension of our Self is what might be called our ‘Unconscious Self’. This is a vast and key dimension of our identity, and we must not overlook it.
This vast land that lies behind the mountain range contains our shadow, our complexes, our Animus, our Anima – and our primordial fires that we share with the rest of our species.
Our Unconscious Self includes our Younger Self, our Child Self, our Lower Self and our sub-conscious. It is primal and animal-like.
We have to go into this territory to learn to see and bind our demons.
We have to go into this territory to learn to heal our shadow and bring it wounds to the light for healing, and bring its buried power to the light for healing.
This is especially true at this time of the Pluto Return of the USA.
WE HAVE TO DO OUR JOURNEY TO OUR UNDERWORLD/THE ABYSS TO ARISE EMPOWER AND HEALED OF OUR WOUNDS.
This vast territory of our Unconscious Self actually stores our life-force.
It is key for the well-being of our physical body.
A key factor of our unconscious self is that it tries to alert us to our needs. It does this by subconscious impulses such as symbols, dreams, visions, hunches, pre-verbal communications and revelations.
We have to train ourselves not to ignore but to take notice of all of these – and all of these we must learn how to decipher.
3.
Our Soul:
The third dimension of our Self is what might be called the Higher Self.
Our eternal soul.
This is the Soul, that exists eternally through our many incarnations, and which chooses the nature of each of our incarnations to seek to achieve spiritual growth.
When we are in connection to our Soul, we can mediate its power into our self, and we can do miracles.
We need the right spiritual tools to deal with the new enlarged energies of this New Age starting from the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of the Winter Solstice 2020.
We do need the right spiritual tools to create the needed new vibration of You.
My personal, sincere observation is that yoga and mantra may and can produce robots. In my life I have found that the richer areas are connecting with the divine nature of the planets, also shamanic healing and vision work. I have found these help the realization of my destiny more.
And I must say that this New Age calls YOU to sincerely identify the spiritual tools that are good for YOU.
Using Astrology to Understand Your Self:
I need to say at this point that Astrology can be used in such a good way to enhance our understanding of these three parts of our Self.
Psychodynamic Western Astrology can be so good at this, for example with its repertoire of chart aspect shapes and also its Nature v. Nurture analysis:
Chart aspect shape analysis offers so very much to our understanding of our Self. There is a vast repertoire of chart aspect shapes that can be drawn on. Commonly known chart aspect shapes are the Yod (the finger of God), the Grand Trine, the T-square, but there are dozens of them – each with its well-researched and tested meaning for our personality and our behavioral scripts and our state of consciousness.
The concept of sub-personalities and split off sub-personalities is key. We can be made up of such conflicting and difference personalities. It’s good to have a mapping of the different parts. This helps our own individual life. it also affects the success and happiness of our relationships. This topic is vast.
Just for one example of subpersonalities, a person might have his Moon in Ardra Nakshatra which is pretty well the ‘my way or the highway’ personality of the German Concentration Camp Guard. But he may also have Sun opposite Neptune which is the Pied Piper who will call people to him only for them to find they were in oblivion that the Neptunian Piper was calling them to an iron dictator.
Just for one example of an Unaspected subpersonality: when that part of ourself is activated by transit or progression and can become big and take over – yer when the activation ends, we can loose all the qualities of the Unaspected part of our self once again (unless we are forewarned by astrology and keep it alive).
Nature v Nurture analysis is so useful, with planets in Signs being our inherited nature, as compared to planets in Houses which depict the Self that is created by our Nurture environment, especially our first nurture environment in this life. this is of course because Houses depict areas of our environment. The You created by your earliest nurture environment can be so different (for good or ill) from the qualities of the You of your inherited nature.
Evolutionary Western Astrology has key meanings to offer, such as planets square the Nodal axis being a missed step in past life.
Vedic Astrology is, of course, a supreme vastness for this task. This is especially true if the use of the supreme tools of Vedic Astrology is expanded to take on a consciousness of the Self that is newer than when many of Vedic Astrology’s wonderful formulas were evolved.
First, to mention from Vedic Astrology, there’s the Nakshatras of Vedic Astrology – the 27 Lunar Signs are marvelous tools for understanding the Self – they are a supreme definition of our emotionally based consciousness and behavioral patterns – warts and all. If you know the Nakshatras a person’s Sun, Moon and Ascendant fall in, you can immediately say such a vastness about that person.
Then there’s the Varga Charts of Vedic Astrology (these are the Divisional Charts of Vedic Astrology), each of which says something supreme and very, very special about a particular area of our life.
Also, from Vedic Astrology we can derive the totally necessary sense of how we experience the Divine Nature of each planet – and also in what way we personally will experience that divine nature, for example through ‘filters’ of sign, house, aspects and the Nakshatras that plant falls in in our chart?
There’s more techniques than these few examples of course, vastly more. But these alone show that the vastness of Vedic Astrology can offer you so much to understand your self. Book a Reading from me.
The Shamanic Dimensions of the Self:
So far I have described Jungian Psychological and Astrological dimensions of our Self. But I have also worked as a Shamanic Healer for the last twenty-six years, and truly so many ancient peoples were aware of further dimensions of our Self than psychology or most astrology.
The shamanic sense of the Self totally recognized the effect of our ancestral inheritance, our connection to the earth, the possibility of Soul Loss, Spiritual Intrusions, parasites, precognition and prophecy. There’s Inner Child work and Power Animal Retrieval.
Shamanic Healings can be so valuable.
Maha Maya:
Lastly, as I promised, above, I do now reflect the important perception that our ‘Self’ and ‘this world’ are not actually the ultimate reality.
Hinduism depicts this world as Maha Maya, the ‘Great Illusion’.
This world is totally important because it is here that we incarnate to work out our key karmas for this life, and where we develop skills that perhaps were left under-developed I the past lifetime, and where we finish off unfinished business and relationships.
So, our ‘Self’ and ‘this world’ have a vast importance, but the true reality is beyond this world.
It is what is depicted as Shiva and Shakti mating endlessly and a result of their mating is the production of this world.
It is what Lord Shiva Nataraja does as he dances in the ring of flames, stamping down on Apasmara the demon of ignorance, as he dances universes into destruction when their time has come and dances new universes into being.
It is what Lord Vishnu does as he lies back in ecstasy dreaming a universe into being – and then when that Universe gets further and further from the God, he sends Avatars to try to sort us humans out, but in the end her re-assimilates each Universe he has created; and emanates another Universe.
This world is also depicted as the playing of Lord Krishna’s flute.
And the Buddhist depicting too is that this world is not real, and that the ultimate reality beyond this world is Nirvana.
People born with Gandanta planets (planets close to the transition point from Water sign to Fire sign in Vedic Astrology) can be very attuned to the unreality of this world, and have a sense of a true reality beyond this world.
Do this blog clearly shows how essential it is for each of us to have a good and accurate understanding of our Self, to have a good ‘map of the Self’.
We need to be able to use the fullness of the tools that are available, not just some narrow formula.
Indeed it is a spiritual imperative for this life time that we bring to our understanding of our Self that is more and more from the spiritual perspective.
I can help you with all this.
You can book an Astrology Reading with me at: //www.starwheelastrology.com/buyanastrologyreading.html
My wife, Maggie Pashley, offers a range of Healing modalities worldwide. Find out more at: //maggiepashley.com/ or email Maggie at maggiepashley@gmail.com or call her on +353 899799642 (0899799642 from within Ireland).
This video and blog is part of our May 2021 Starwheel Astrology and Healing Newsletter, and you can see all the links for the different parts of our June Newsletter and see all the charts on the June webpage in our Starwheel astrology website:
//www.starwheelastrology.com/2021-june.html
