The Inner Compass
Psychologies, Ecologies and Cosmologies of Practice
Perennial Problems
Say you have a recurring problem. A situation you find yourself in again and again. You have tried various means of solving the problem, but it appears intractable. No matter what you do, it always comes back. Even your strategies for specifically avoiding said problem seem to lead right back to its reoccurrence with an inevitability that seems straight out of a Greek tragedy. If you are nodding along with a knowing feeling, you are not alone. All human beings suffer in this way. That is one reason we have so many fatalistic myths about self-fulfilling prophesies—sometimes it just feels like we can not help ourselves.
This is what cognitive scientist John Vervaeke (from whom I also pick up the phrase Ecology of Practice) calls a perennial problem, that is: A tendency towards self-deceptive or self-destructive behaviour that emerges as a natural consequence of the cognitive machinery that also allows you to adapt to a changing world. If you have some time on your hands, check out his lecture series, Awakening from the Meaning Crisis
A typically new-age way to talk about these perennial problems might be to say that by focusing on your problems, you give them “energy” or “power” and thereby start to “manifest” them in your life. Of course, this captures a grain of truth, but misses the larger picture and instead magnifies a trivial aspect; a blinkered diagnosis leading to highly dubious prescription—in this case, an obsession with positive thoughts and affirmations, at the expense of realistic attitudes and plans of action.
A better way to think about it might be to say that you are made up of different parts, and that while one part of you is trying to change your situation, other (less conscious) parts are pulling in other directions. In this way of speaking, we might say that self-deceptive and self-destructive behaviour patterns are caused by the conflict between the agendas and desires of different parts, some of which are more conscious or integrated than others. By working to integrate and reconcile our different parts, we might hope to experience less misery.
To go one step further, we might start to talk about complexes. Here, we first have to get over the fact that complex is a more charged word than part. But the word complex, technically does not denote neuroticism or pathology. It is a neutral word that merely gestures towards assemblages or networks of associated material in the mind.
These networks/complexes can be composed of memories, emotional responses, reactive strategies, patterns of physical sensation, thoughts, ideas, preferences, and so on. They can be small or large, simple or complicated. They can range from being basically inert in the psyche to being semi (or sometimes fully) autonomous. “Energy”, “parts”, “complexes” or “networks” are all metaphors, none of which approach the true complexity of the reality of being human, but taking this latter perspective can help to explain why some of our problems are so much more resilient than our strategies for solving them seem to be.
We generally approach the symptom of our suffering, whatever it is, as a problem unto itself. If our problems were simple circular feedback loops, then dealing with them would be a simple matter of interrupting the circuit. Unfortunately they are actually not very much like simple feedback loops—they are much more akin to complex networks which are resilient precisely because each node in the network can have many connections to other nodes, which means the system always has the ability to work around any nodes or connections that have been interrupted or damaged.
For example, depression is not just an excess of passive-negative emotion. Every depressed person will have a unique network of many different thematically (though often not rationally) related material, of which negative emotion is but one node. Some of the other nodes might contain narrative material and beliefs relating to their childhood and/or their current identity or self-concept. Some other nodes might be food preference or body-image related. Some might have to do with fear for the future and political opinions. It is more than likely that some part of the picture has to do with physical discomfort, injury, pain, or a hormonal or other biochemical imbalance. But none of these things, treated without attention being given to the others, will ultimately do the job of “curing” depression. Indeed, the concept of “curing” it starts to break apart, the closer you look at it.
Counteractive Complexes or Ecologies of Practice
Consider that the complexes that we associate with mental illness or suffering in general are never going to be composed purely of pathological material. Many of the nodes in their networks are going to be facets of self which which are things that we like, or which are also parts of other complexes, and which we rely on. Those political convictions which play a role in one’s depression are not necessarily wrong or pathological in and of themselves. In the context of a depressive complex, they might fuel a sense of despair and disconnection, but the answer is not to simply attempt to erase them from the psyche. Short of a 1940s style lobotomy, this would not be possible, even if we unadvisedly desired it.
So, if we cannot simply interrupt the circuit of our suffering, and we cannot hope to eradicate these troublesome complexes wholesale, what can we do about it? Well, Vervaeke suggests (and I agree) that we might instead aim to develop counteractive complexes which pull us in the opposite direction. Where depression drags us down, we need an equally resilient network that buoys us back up. All this talk of complexes and networks could seem very dry and analytical, but the truth is, when I talk about complexes and networks, I am gesturing towards something that is alive in the psyche; a living part of a living being. Hence the phrase ecology of practice—our counteractive complexes need also to be alive.
Thinking of our complexes in ecological terms rather than purely psychological ones also challenges us to overcome any latent biases of the Western materialistic outlook which we may be carrying, and directs us to examine the way that we talk about willpower. The materialistic paradigm wants us to think about power in terms of dominion, or having power over something. Whereas, an ecological perspective forces us think about power in terms of relationships between participants, where the ability to make any kind of change arises only as a result of interaction between—what Joanna Macy has called power-with. Just like the resilient misery-creating complexes we are trying to overcome, any new complex will need to be a living thing; an ecology unto itself in which many different parts of self are able to empower and assist one another other, giving rise to synergistic (co-empowering) benefits which could never have been predicted in advance.
Tending the Garden
Think of it this way: Imagine you have a garden that is full of nettles, brambles and other overly ambitious plants. It is an ecosystem. It is functioning. But to you, it is a painful and unpleasant place to go, and you would like to get it under control. One option you have is simply to take a flamethrower to it all. Burn it to the ground. Once it has cooled off, douse the entire plot with weedkiller. In the process, you would seemingly destroy the entire ecosystem that was living there. However, the ashen void that you would leave behind would hardly make for a peaceful environment for you to visit. On top of that, after a couple of years, the nettles and the brambles would return.
A different strategy you could take would be to subdivide the garden into smaller areas, and tackle it one piece at a time, digging up the roots of the weeds, and planting things there that you care about, which you will be motivated to tend to and protect. Of course, the battle against the nettles and the bramble will continue, but as new plants begin to take root, you will increasingly be able to rely on their own vitality to look after themselves, and move on to the next patch.
Remember also that you can eat blackberries and nettles, even if they do require a bit of taming. The cognitive machinery that makes you vulnerable to self-destructive and self-deceptive behaviour is also that which makes you adaptive. In order to orient these mechanisms to the positive, all that is needed is to encourage healthy diversity, maintain an attitude care and responsibility and crucially, to work in accordance with the basic principles of nature. This is where an understanding of the astrological archetypes becomes invaluable.
Every gardener needs to understand the seasons. If you are to plant the seeds of self-respect and compassion and watch over them from germination to fruition, you will need ways to understand the weather, the climate, the soil itself; you will need a way to understand the over-arching principles that might keep the ecosystem as a whole in balance. If you are to be the gardener of your own being, you need access to the wisdom of all those who have tended their own soil. Astrology is precisely this: an almanac for the inner garden; an invitation to situate our ecology in a cosmology. If you want to be in tune with the cycles of nature in a psychological, spiritual, emotional, somatic and imaginal sense, archetypal astrology is the gold standard.
Points of The Inner Compass
The first step in forming this cosmologically informed ecology of practice is to learn the basic categories of experience that the planets correlate with:
The Sun is the part of you that aspires to manifest a creative vision—in the day world, where others can witness it; the light of consciousness, being directed this way and that through you.
The Moon is the part that is nourished by feeling whatever is there to be felt, in the privacy of your inner world; the part that is defined by what you belong to and where you came from.
Mercury is the part of you that wants to understand the underlying logic (and magic) of things; the part that uses symbols to create an abstract realm where every idea can be toyed with.
Venus is the part that wants to enjoy the fruits of all of existence’s labours; your capacity to appreciate and attribute value based on feeling; your ability to be motivated by love.
Mars wants to move and make things happen, to incite courage and strike out alone; the risk-taking part; the one who wants to be strong and to have poise and prowess.
Jupiter wants to grow and to give, to include and to benefit; to gain and be grateful; your innate inner goodness and capacity for benevolence.
Saturn is the part of you that understands how to keep your feet on the ground and take a realistic approach to the material requirements of the everyday world; the part that wants to strip away the fluff and focus on the fundamentals.
Uranus, by contrast, is always on the lookout for new ways of doing things which might liberate you from past constraints; it is your unique ways of thinking, your special gifts—the genius that you can only access by leaning into your own radical idiosyncrasy.
Neptune is the part of you that wants to remember your oneness with everything; the river, seeking its return to the ocean; your inner meditator and your capacity to surrender.
Pluto is the wild and untameable part of you that snarls at the conventions of society like a wolf caught in a trap; the erotic, Dionysian underbelly of your biological nature and your will to evolve and transform yourself.
These descriptions give a flavour of what the planetary archetypes are like, though obviously far more thorough descriptions are possible. Inevitably, you will feel more affinity with some than you do with others. Some relate to parts of you that have been rewarded, complimented, accepted and encouraged, so naturally you feel good about them and identify closely with them. Others relate to parts that have been rejected, humiliated, punished and shamed, and you thus feel bad about them and try to identify with them as little as possible. Nonetheless, all these parts are there, they are all worthy and beautiful, and can all be expressed by you in a manner that enhances or detracts from your sense of being fully alive.
The planetary archetypes also relate to and suggest different types of practice or activity that might help you to participate in their nature and thus develop those parts of yourself that feel more distant and dim. In this way, astrology—in particular, archetypal astrology—can be the tool that guides you in the creation of your own ecology of practices.
Not all of these activities will seem like formal practices—some will seem like ordinary, everyday things—but by approaching them from an astrological context, you might perhaps start to see how the archetypal structure of the cosmos is woven also throughout the seemingly mundane moments of life. This will help you to undertake these activities with more intention, understanding that they form a vital node in the network of your soul’s thriving.
Work with the Sun by lying in it on a hot day, watching the sunrise or sunset, creating a self-portrait or undertaking any creative act with an autobiographical feel to it. Find ways to share your creative output with others, and if this is uncomfortable, take your cue from the plants that worship the Sun so directly: start small and grow naturally. Engaging in any practice (such as yoga, meditation, prayer, or journaling) at sunrise can help you to hold your aspirations and intentions more clearly in mind as you go through the rest of the day.
Work with the Moon by keeping track of its cycle and gazing up at it whenever it is visible in the sky. Similarly, keep track of your own energetic and emotional cycles by engaging in introspective practices like journaling. Make time to lie down and feel your emotions with no other agenda. Find ways to notice the feelings and sensations that are living in your body. Tend to bonds of kinship and care for the people in your circle, and remember to ask for care when you need it.
Work with Mercury by “coming to terms with things”—literally meaning find the right words for. Follow the threads of your curiosity and fascination, learn new ways of thinking, and work out how things fit together. Make time for reading and writing and schedule times for stimulating conversation with friends. Try to approach your emotions and relationships from an objective, rational standpoint, and see what insights this might bring.
Work with Venus by bringing loving intention to your friendships and intimate relationships. Compliment a stranger on their outfit. Write a love letter, even if you never send it, even if you have nobody to write it to but yourself. Remember that eating cake can be a devotional act, if you approach it with a particularly conscious mindset. Remember that self-care is more than just bubble-baths, but also remember that bubble-baths can be quite nice. Make a small effort to make your home more beautiful.
Work with Mars by moving your body. Run, or if you do not like running, swim. If not either, then ride a bike or play a sport. If you hate those too, walk at a brisk pace, chop wood, carry water, work in the garden. If even those activities seem awfully tedious, then dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your own bedroom, alone, with your headphones in. Mars has mental and emotional attributes as well as physical ones, but truly, the most direct (and Mars is all about direct) way to access their positive sides is to work up a sweat. It does not matter much how you choose to do it.
Work with Jupiter by giving. Whatever you have in abundance, even if it is only kindness, find ways to share it around. Gratitude practices can help you to be mindful of your good fortune and to maintain a healthy awareness of the ways in which the universe supports you. Expand your horizons by learning and making time to ponder the truly meaningful questions of life. Take joy in your own successes and those of others; make a point of celebrating every small victory and work to keep yourself and the people around you buoyant and hopeful for future positive outcomes.
Work with Saturn by attending to the essentials. Remember that even the most mundane tasks are a vital part of the rich tapestry of your life, and that giving time to the boring work in the present always makes more room for joy in the future. Aim to wash the dishes without a trace of resentment or resistance in your mind. Try to bring a higher level of staying power and determination to your other activities and practices: if you have a meditation practice, try to meditate for longer without opening your eyes or moving your body; if you like to run or work out, try to improve your endurance—focus on the part of whatever you are doing that requires consistent effort, rather than short bursts of energy.
Work with Uranus by leaning into your own idiosyncrasies, and by learning to value the unique brilliance of other individuals. Make time to learn a little bit about a totally new subject. Use journaling time to focus on an optimistic vision of the future and let your imagination run riot. Read about progressive causes and understand the urge for rebellion, radical action and revolution, internally and in society. Find ways to engage in the activist/political arena that are healthy and meaningful to you.
Work with Neptune by meditating, praying and daydreaming; make time for reverie and contemplation, in whatever form you prefer. Go to the ocean, or a lake or river, and get in. Float on your back and look up at the sky. Let go. Take any opportunity to surrender to the simple reality of what is happening in the moment. Read religious texts, spiritual literature and mystical poetry, or read session reports from psychedelic journeys. Talk or write about your dreams, or listen to others talk about theirs. Find ways to temporarily retreat from the world, so that you can be quiet and still.
Work with Pluto by exploring your depths. There is always something bubbling away beneath the surface which is nearly ready to come into the light of consciousness. Use automatic writing, dream analysis, or active imagination practices to discover and articulate unconscious material, or work responsibly with psychedelic medicines and breathwork to expand your state of consciousness such that you can experience a bit more of that material directly. Find safe environments and containers where you can express the full intensity of your emotion, even when it is totally irrational or a bit scary. If it is possible for you, work with a Jungian analyst or transpersonal psychologist.
You can start to see how, even without adding any other layers of refinement using signs or houses, the planetary archetypes form an exquisitely intuitive and exceedingly complete set of symbols that, when taken as a whole, describes the entire human experience, leaving nothing out. Even a total astrological non-believer could evaluate this system purely on the basis of its utility as a way of dividing things up into categories—a process which in turn generates novel insights into self and provides actionable strategies for alleviating suffering and improving life in various quantifiable (as well as ineffable) ways.
Learning to Tell the Time
For those who are not so skeptical, it is actually advantageous that the categories of experience that the planets correlate with are not arbitrary or mere creations of human intellect. Thousands of years of tradition as well as a good deal of modern scholarship and research has shown that the orbits of the planets are correlated with fundamental archetypal forces which colour and characterise all experiential activity in the universe, and this is a positive bonus—thank the gods that we live in an intelligible universe! Even from the astrological perspective, the planets are not seen as the source of the archetypes, but rather as an extremely handy geometric representation of them, which allows us to see what is going on astrologically at any given time—an archetypal clock to set our personal watches by.
Though it is beyond the scope of this article to articulate in detail, it should be stated that the astrological adventure does not end with the learning of individual archetypes. This is because they are all constantly interacting with each other, overlapping and interpenetrating, mingling and becoming entangled with one another. As they do this, they mutually activate and inflect one another such that their external manifestations become artfully blended and connected. The role of astrological practice is to help us to keep track of these currents and help to ensure that we do not waste our energy swimming against the tide; to help us participate in the intricate creative principle that is constantly at work in the universe in the fullest and most open-hearted manner possible.
A couple of examples:
When the Sun is in alignment with Jupiter, these are times when it is possible that your sense of self might undergo some kind of expansion. If approached unknowingly, this might take the form of egoic inflation, grandiosity and pride. But if you understand the archetypal quality of the moment, you can engage in practices that are aimed at developing your inner qualities of benevolence, remembering that giving and receiving are one and the same. There is also a chance, during these alignments, that the mind may be captured by desire for material gain, but if you know this in advance, you can take up practices that remind you that the truer treasure that your soul craves is within: the awareness of existing in a benevolent universe and the miracle of living as a conscious being. The felt expansion of selfhood that comes with these kinds of realisation is far more meaningful, beneficial and lasting than the temporary boosts that come from egoic inflation and material gain.
When the Moon is in alignment with Saturn, these are times when your emotional and relational world may come under some pressure or contraction. Without any astrological insight, you might take any feelings of unworthiness or abandonment at face value, and assume that any shift towards negative emotion signals a personal failing and a permanent change. But with the aid of an astrological perspective, you can find practices that help you to responsibly make time to feel your emotions in a mature way, knowing that they are both valid and impermanent. Recognising the archetypal quality of this moment, you also might choose to make serious efforts to incrementally improve the quality of your home environment, or tend to maternal relationships or any other bonds of kinship and belonging. The astrological view, in this instance, validates any sadness, loneliness, or feelings of emotional inadequacy that you may have and gives you permission to fully feel and process them, while also providing the opportunity to transmute any debilitating negative affect into emotional maturity and groundedness, and a deeper capacity for sustained and systematic self-reflection.
By learning to update the kinds of personal practices and activities you engage in according to the overlapping cycles of the planets, you can always find a way to work with whatever is happening, rather than struggle against it. And, by its very nature, the ever changing character of these archetypal flows also suggests a very permissive and flexible attitude towards all kinds of practice. Inherent in this system is an awareness that what works for today may not work for tomorrow.
All spiritual practice in the (post/meta)modern age presents us with a tension between the dogmatic adherence which most ancient modalities of spiritual development tend to demand (or at least strongly suggest), versus the value that the contemporary self tends to place on the freedom to choose one’s own path. It would seem to make sense to stick with any given practice for long enough that we can truly reap the benefits, rather than getting mere a taste for it before moving on to the next thing. Furthermore, if we are allowed to merely pick and choose our practices based on whim and preference, we will undoubtedly take the path of least resistance more often than not, and miss out on the deeper benefits of participating in practice with a genuinely committed “religious” attitude. On the other hand, the ancient traditions do seem somewhat ossified and ill-suited to the needs of modern people and the complexities of contemporary society. The mystical core of any religion is what appears to nourish and sustain its adherents, not the dogma or the dated structures that it has instantiated over time.
Using archetypal astrology as an overarching guiding principle affords us the best of both worlds, for it is substantial and structured enough to give us something meaningful to commit and adhere to, while also being flexible and permissive enough to allow for a personal, exploratory and open-ended approach to building an ecology of practice that can function differently (but effectively) for every person. Not only that, but its capacity for honouring difference does not come at the cost of a descent into a “postmodern” confusion or a nihilistic malaise, but actually comes with the vitally important capacity to re-ground us in our ancient history, re-connect us with tradition, and re-mind us of our connectedness with our ancestors, as well as with the Earth and sky, the planets and stars; the ensouled and animate universe as a whole.
I realise that it has taken me a long time to say all of this, but hopefully you agree that there was a lot here to say!
If you want to go deeper into this way of working, there are several ways to do it. You can:
learn more astrology and develop your own practice.
book a reading with an astrologer (like me) to gain more insights.
join the Soul-Work container (beginning soon!) which has been lovingly created around the very principles that are articulated here.
preorder my Archetypal Astrology Oracle deck and guidebook, which contains artwork, poetry and suggestions for activities and practices for every archetype and every planetary pair.
I also highly recommend all readings and courses offered and books/articles written by Renn Butler, James Moran, Alex Stein, Alexis Angelucci, Robert Anderson, and Erica Jones.
Thanks for reading.
P.S.
Liking, sharing, quoting, reStacking, subscribing and recommending my SubStack are also really good ways to support me, if you value what I am doing.