As many of my clients have a background in Anthroposophy, people sometimes ask if I do Astrosophy. The answer is no. I do Tropical Astrology informed by the teachings of Anthroposophy. This is a very big subject, which I will try to clarify in the simplest way I can. I did study Astrosophy, which is based in Sidereal astronomy, with Willi Sucher in the 1980’s. What I learned was that the Sidereal zodiac reflects the highest, devachanic level of reality and what we encounter in those realms are the divine Archetypes of the Zodiac. Astrosophy is based on the cosmic archetypes of the constellations and how the life of Christ is related to them. This is a profound study and I did spend many years working with this view of the Zodiac. However, Willi Sucher (the founder of Astrosophy) didn’t do ‘personal’ chart interpretations. He made it clear that the Sidereal Constellations should not be applied to interpret the psychology or soul attributes of an individual, as one does with Tropical astrology.
Willi Sucher devoted his life to working out the exact times of the various events in the life of Christ and finding their correspondences to what planets were in what degree in the Sidereal Zodiac. If your Sidereal chart contained any of these degrees, then he would suggest that you meditate specifically on that event from the life of Christ. He also referred his students to contemplate the ‘Virtues’ associated with the 12 Constellations in order to balance the human tendency towards one sidedness. He viewed the personal study of an individual’s chart to be narcissistic and even atavistic. He believed that our challenge today is to find a new relationship to the Cosmic Beings of the Zodiac through Christ. This was his entire focus and the basic orientation of Astrosophy.
For the intentions of Astrosophy, there is no question that the Sidereal Zodiac must be used. However, for the interpretation of an individual’s personal relationship to the Zodiac, I have found Tropical astrology to be far more accurate as a symbolic language that describes our human experience. The Tropical Zodiac is based on the etheric experience we have of the seasons. Our etheric body is where our habits, character and karma are anchored. The Sidereal Zodiac is based on the astral realm of divine archetypes. It reflects our aspirations, but not where we live and far less how we experience our lives. This is a vast over simplification but it is why I ultimately decided to continue to work with the Tropical zodiac for personal chart interpretations. I’ve found in working with hundreds of progressed charts that the calculations of the Tropical Zodiac provide an uncannily accurate correspondence to the exact experiences of my clients. I’ve had no such clear correspondence with progressions of the Sidereal chart.
Both Zodiacs use the same signs in the same order but they decide when the first sign of the Zodiac begins differently. The Sidereal zodiac reflects the actual position of the Constellation on the ecliptic at the Spring equinox, which is currently at 6º Pisces. The rest of the Zodiac follows in the same sequence, but the division of the signs and the actual size of the constellations are not identical, so there are times when the Sidereal Zodiac says one constellation is rising, but another is actually seen on the horizon. The Tropical zodiac uses the Spring Equinox as the point when the Sun moves into the 1st degree of the sign Aries. This reflects our experience of the seasons, but it is an unchanging and therefore symbolic connection between Aries and the Vernal Equinox. At the Summer Solstice, the Sun moves into Cancer; at the Autumn Equinox the Sun moves into Libra, and at Winter Solstice, the Sun enters Capricorn. The Tropical Zodiac similarly has times when it accurately reflects the constellation and times when it doesn’t. Both systems have deep archetypal roots, but the Sidereal is closer to the astronomical reality.
The two zodiacal systems were aligned 2,000 years ago at the time of Christ when the Spring equinox coincided exactly with 0º Aries in the observable sky. I wonder if the significance of that event was so great that the archetypal imprint of Aries was forever wed to the Vernal Equinox. The Sidereal system accounts for the apparent backwards movement of the fixed stars by about 1 degree every 72 years, from the perspective of the Earth due to the Earth’s axial precession. The Zodiac itself hasn’t changed, but our viewing position has. Today, the Spring equinox is approximately 24º behind that position, (depending on which system of calculation you use) and so, if the Sun was at 15º Leo Tropical at your birth, you’d be 21º Virgo, Sidereal! While Sidereal astrology does present a more accurate snapshot of the constellations from the earth’s perspective, the constellations are not of equal size and don’t fit in neat 30 degree segments. So the Sidereal zodiac also isn’t perfectly accurate. They are both symbolic representations of man’s attempt to relate to cosmic archetypes. They’re both valid but indicate different dimensions of the human experience.
My first teacher was my husband William (now Elias) Lonsdale. We met in 1971 at a Vermont commune, back when being a professional astrologer was extremely rare and charts were calculated by hand! We carried around hundreds of reference books wherever we travelled to practice astrology. In those early years, William had precious manuscripts from the Sabian Assembly and all the currently published material by Marc Edmond Jones and Dane Rudhyar, as well as many others authors. He was also teaching classes and doing research for his books. We lived immersed in Star Wisdom for 11 years. We met Dane Rudhyar and studied Astrosophy with Willi Sucher in person for several years.
After Elias and I separated, I studied the works of Marc E. Jones, Dane Rudhyar, Stephen Arroyo, Donna Cunningham, Joan Hodgson, Liz Greene, Michael Meyer, Tracy Marks, Robert Hand, Jeff Mayo, Alan Oaken, Stephen Forest, Willi Sucher, Adam Bittleston, John Jocelyn, Robert Powell, Valentin Tomberg and Rudolf Steiner – to name a few of my favorite authors. However, as most astrologers will tell you, their whole life informs what they bring to this service. The studies and trainings that prepared me to do this work included in depth study of metaphysics, religion, mythology and psychology. I also did extensive training in NLP and Trauma Recovery and taught these subjects in workshop form in CA for over 20 years.