The Life Axis- Introduction
The “Life Axis” is an insight that followed my intuition of The Lunation Point at the winter solstice of 2006. When I aligned the dark symbolism of the beginning of the Lunation Cycle to match up with the dark symbolism of the Zodiac at the winter solstice, I naturally wondered if (and how) Capricorn could serve as a symbol of beginnings. My mind immediately moved to that Sea-Goat with a fishes tail. Perhaps, I thought.. perhaps that fishes tail represents life coming to earth out of Cancer water? For the moment, I left that question open also. A new question popped up. Might this line of questioning suggest that the Mid-Heaven/IC of the chart could also be associated with the beginnings; specifically, with the beginning of life itself? I’ve been exploring and testing these ideas now for over ten years.
Here is the short introduction to the Life Axis; the bones.
The Life Axis at birth, which could also be called an Axis of Identity, is the MH/IC axis. The Life Axis progresses counter-clockwise away from the MH/IC and completes one revolution around the chart in 84.32 years. This time frame mimics the periodic cycle of Uranus around the Sun and represents an archetypal, modern day lifespan. From birth, there is a developmental cycle explicitly revealed as this axis (this cross really) moves into relationship with all the natal planets, signs and angles.
As an example, all planets associated with the Tenth and Fourth Houses will contribute to an early chapter in your life. We are essentially talking the first seven years of life. The sequencing of this activation is clear and concise. At any point in your journey, transits and progressions that aspect the progressing Life Axis will also reflect on the grist for the mill of your developmental path.
You Were Born on the Vertical Axis of the Mid-Heaven/IC
So let me add some flesh to those bones… Let me give you more context to understand where I’m coming from.
At your birth you are unbridled spirit with no ego formation; no rational capacity to nurture or protect yourself. As infants, we are all Lunar in nature; we have no Ego boundary. And we are very dependent on the good will of mother, father, family and culture to serve as the next womb in our life. The nature of the protective and supportive context for these early months and first seven years of life- is symbolized by the Fourth/Tenth House axis in your birth chart. The Fourth House, at this time, represents your larger “Self”; your divine lunar nature rebirthing into the infantile stage of the human form. The Tenth House is the public realm of manifest earth and culture within which your quasi-autonomous “I”; Ego will slowly emerge in coming years. These two poles of your Identity; larger Self and mortal Ego are also symbolized by the two great lights in astrology, the Moon and the Sun.
From this vertical axis on your own personal “Cross of Matter” both dimensions of your evolving self-conscious Identity will rotate counter-clockwise through the collective energies of the Signs and Planets of your birth chart. The Lunar pole of your Life Axis begins at the Fourth House cusp (Imum Caelum; IC) and transforms itself into a socially conscious participant in culture, as it progresses towards the Tenth House cusp throughout the first half of life.
The Solar pole of your Life Axis, is latent at birth; it is pure potential at the Tenth House cusp (Medium Caelum; MC or Mid-Heaven; MH) and it slowly emerges and develops into an individuating mind and voice as it progresses toward the IC. The Lunar and Solar dimension of your Life Axis cannot help but always co-exist together although one of these dimensions will often carry more weight than the other.
Qualified Respect for the Ascendant as Symbolic of Birth
I want to respect that the idea of being being born on the axis of the MH/IC at birth may meet stiff resistance from many a reader. First of all, we are quite accustomed to thinking of the Ascendant of the birth chart as the marker which is symbolic of birth. The Ascendant, not the whole axis, has long been considered symbolic of our entry into this manifest world from the domain of pure spirit or divinity. If we are born anywhere in terms of houses in astrology, wouldn’t it be here? Our established wisdom suggests that from the Ascendant, we square the axis of mother/father; family/culture. And further, our unspoken assumption holds that from here we begin our journey around the houses. We begin at the first house. In modern times most astrologers tend to equate the twelfth house with the ending of life. There are two thousand years of meaning invested in this perspective. Our attachment to this metaphor is strong. I respect those thoughts. But, with the book that I am now finishing up, “Soul Point Astrology”, I will offer you a more extensive overview of my rationale for the shift in my thinking. This article serves as an introduction to that shift.
In addition, I share this image from the cover “The Astrology of Fate” by Liz Greene, 1984 I don’t claim to know how Liz Greene would feel about the ideas I am sharing here. I do feel comfortable sharing the quotations from her book. When I came across them, they offered me some support for my “insane” paradigm shift. I also find the imagery of “Clotho the Spinner, Lachesis the Measurer, and Atropos the Cutter, hovering dimly over the zodiacal wheel p. 13” to be revealing. For the placental connections to life are seen to connect through the top and the bottom of the birth chart. The Ascendant is untouched. For this reader, that imagery is not a meaningless coincidence. That imagery is notable indeed.
Rudhyar’s “Point of Self”
The roots of my “Life Axis” lie in the creative genius of Dane Rudhyar. In particular, I have been inspired by his “Point of Self”. I have chewed through his idea and altered into the formulas that I am presenting here.
In “The Astrology of Personality”; 1936, Rudhyar introduced us to the idea that the Houses of astrology offer a timing factor within their nature (Chapter 6; The Dial of Houses; pp. 201-222) This was a radical new suggestion, at least in modern times. Long established custom teaches that the houses in astrology are divisions in space around us at birth and they symbolize fields of experience through which particular planets and signs can best manifest their blessings or challenges within our lives. Perhaps Rudhyar was integrating the modern view that space and time are not separate concepts? He was certainly intuiting a timing function within the framework of houses. And he was not alone in this. Other contemporary astrologers, the Hubers of France and AT Mann in the United States, have since introduced their own perspectives on meaningful timing within the structure of Houses.
I have chewed through Rudhyar’s book, an incredibly rich expose on the relation between astrology, psychology and spirituality, at least three or four times- underlining blue pen once, yellow marker the next; asterisks and notes to point me back to key passages and to remember my questions. He had proposed measuring three twenty eight year cycles of time counter clock-wise from the Ascendant. He called the marker for this cycle, “The Point of Self”. He described three journeys around the chart for his Point of Self, each journey characterized by a greater degree of consciousness with which to develop the qualities of the planets and signs in turn. The three “Saturn” cycles added up to an eighty-four year, “Uranus” inspired life span.
I always thought this idea to be fascinating, and perhaps to hold merit. I must also acknowledge that in the preface to later additions of the “The Astrology of Personality”, he walked the idea backwards. He didn’t pursue it throughout his life. I’m guessing he simple didn’t get enough support for the idea from his audience. Nevertheless, the idea that the houses can reveal an intrinsic timing factor in our lives, always intrigued me.
Allow me to quote from Rudhyar’s own words in 1936. “…the wheel of houses is inherently to be interpreted in terms of becoming rather than of static being. It is a time-pattern; a pattern of unfoldment, recording essentially a process. And this process is the great psychological process of individuation…” p. 212 He then proceeded to paint a picture of the entire eighty-four year life cycle in terms of twelve stages of development, each stage seven years long. He assigned each stage to successive quadrants of the birth chart starting counter-clockwise from the Ascendant. I was fascinated with his ingenuity, although I couldn’t easily test his ideas. They had never been incorporated into any software available to us.
From Point of Self to Progressing Life Axis
In 2006, when I had my own epiphany about the nature of the Dark New Moon phase being grounded into the zodiac beginning with the shared Dark of Capricorn, I naturally began to think of the Mid-Heaven in terms of beginnings also. And I thought to myself, what if we applied Rudhyar’s concept of a “Point of Self” to the Mid-Heaven instead of the Ascendant? What if his idea had merit, but he had started the cycle in the wrong place? And what might be the speed of the timing factor around the chart? My intuition was to use the actual periodic timing of Uranus around the Sun; 84.32 years.
It took me a year or two before my thinking expanded to include the notion of both the MH and the IC as symbolizing a shared axis of birth. Just as we are all invested in over-valuing the Ascendant relative to the Descendant, I was looking at the progression of a “Point of Self” only from the MH. At the time I was calling it the Life Point. But I quickly realized that the story of birth and of every stage in life through the houses, was better told from both sides of an axis, simultaneously. The “Point of Self” transformed within my own thinking to become the “Life Axis”.
From Birth to Mid-Life
The Axis of the Cusps between your Fourth and Tenth houses in the birth chart symbolizes the beginning of your life. Life is reborn through your body at the Roots of the chart and Ego will shortly begin to emerge above. The movement forward in life leads through the axis of the Fifth and Eleventh houses (Childhood) and then the Sixth and Twelfth houses (Adolescence).
Planets and signs in the vicinity of the ASC/DSC axis will be grist for the mill of your experience as you approach or pass out of adolescence into young adulthood. The Ascendant indeed remains “the face you show the world”, but it is the face you bring to the world as a young adult, not as an infant. The “face you show the world” marks the long turning arc into the second quarter of life. The Ego is getting stronger after dealing with years of conditioning from culture and family. And only now at the First Quarter mark in life, is the Ego really free to move out and test itself in the world. Only now, is the “light” of emerging individuality beginning to overcome the “dark” of collective identity that has served as the womb for its growth all these years.
We continue moving forward and the MH/IC axis symbolism becomes figural again as you approach mid-life, with all it’s relative glory or catharsis. Archetypal mid-life is an exact measure in this cycle, at 42.16 years old. At this point, we can reflect on the infantile and youthful experience of the tenth and fourth houses from an adult context. At birth, we had very little capacity for using any inner authority to control how we were impacted by those energies, but by mid-life as we approach these energies again, we have the opportunity to heal any wounds associated with them, and we can strive to raise these planetary and zodiacal dimensions of our nature to a more fulfilling level of integrity with the world around us.
The Turning of the Tide at Mid-Life
As we move forward into the second half of life, we can see that the Life Axis is going to move through the same karma all over again. However, the Solar side of this polarity, the potential Ego that started its development in the Tenth House, is moving through the Fourth House now. We hope that Ego is a fully developed structure of mental integrity in life integrated in some meaningful relationship with other individuals of integrity. The personal Ego, now at home in the Fourth house, looks up to the Tenth House with perspective.
Meanwhile, the Lunar pole of the Life Axis, our roots from birth, which originated in the Fourth House, is now moving through the Tenth, and will only come back toward the Fourth near the archetypal “end of the matter”. I have equated this Lunar dimension of our nature with the word “Self”. Identity from this side of the Life Axis has always taken cues from the family and culture of our upbringing. And it has always been emotionally tied in with the needs of the greater whole “around” and within us. Both aspects of our Identity, the Individual and the Collective have grown and matured to some degree.
And Mid-Life is almost always poignant. It always represents a re-polarization of our Solar and Lunar natures with respect to each other.
From the perspective of our Solar personal Ego now moving into the Fourth House, we feel the inevitability of “fate”; an encounter with destiny to come. All of a sudden, most of us are keenly aware of the ancient meaning of that dreaded Eighth House; death. And we begin to think in terms of the Ninth House legacy, the heavens, the cosmos itself, the realm of the “akashic records”, where we hope to achieve some degree of “immortality” in the minds of those who may remember and benefit from our individual existence. The personal Ego is offered the opportunity to plan for and begin acting on just how it will sacrifice to the greater good over time.
From the perspective of our Lunar Self now moving into the Tenth House, that Eighth house has already represented the pinnacle of the first third of our life, likely expressed in terms of passionate and meaningful engagement within the commonwealth of communal living! And here at mid-life, the Lunar Self is passing through the Tenth House and is often locked into a communal role. Re-polarization is beginning, and soon the Self will discover the importance of the need to fulfill its own unique creative potential as we pass through the eastern houses of the chart. This becomes stronger as we pass into the 11th house on this axis. Many will realize that their lives are too weighted towards identification with others needs. For them, there comes a time to ask, legitimately so, Who am “I”? and What about “Me”?
Mid-life can be a celebration but it can also offer catharsis for failures. It is usually a bit of both. Whether you have lived the first half of your life heavily weighted towards Solar “me” or Lunar “we” development, its “high tide” for both sequences. The tide is “in” at mid-life and its going to turn back out. Both of these dimensions of our conscious identity can continue to evolve, but only to the degree that they can also make peace with the necessity of “letting go” over time.
The ultimate work of the second half of life for the personal Ego is to match one’s unique creative gifts with the needs of the collective, even as you keep feeding yourself through the process. In the end, there is an ultimate freedom of surrender (Ninth House following the Eighth).
The second half work for the Self is to recover in full consciousness the divinity that you always have been, in human form. The cultural Self is as much a temporary experience as the personal Ego. It too evolves through some experiences of loss in the second half. And perhaps, in the spirit of Allan Watts, “The Book”, we realize who we are and who we have been, all along.
Take a moment, if you will, to reflect on the Twelve Stages of Life that the Life Axis passes through in its progression around the chart. I will elaborate more on my interpretation of these stages in my book, “Soul Point Astrology” which is scheduled for release in 2018. The labels assigned to each age will offer you a framework for thinking through this idea and coming up with your own interpretations.
The Twelve Stages of Life Progressing through the Houses
The Waxing Stages Solar Ego Lunar Self
Protection and Nurturance Birth-7 10th House 4th House
Rational Learning and Creative Play 7-14 11th House 5th House
Dreaming and Apprenticeship 14-21 12th House 6th House
Initiative and Commitment 21-28 1st House 7th House
Building Power and Self-Sacrifice 28-35 2nd House 8th House
Testing One’s Voice and Playing God 35-42 3rd House 9th House
The Waning Stages Solar Ego Lunar Self
Healing and Leadership 42-49 4th House 10th House
Personal Integrity and Altruism 49-56 5th House 11th House
Humility and Empathy 56-63 6th House 12th House
Diplomacy and Authenticity 63-70 7th House 1st House
Surrender and Redemption 70-77 8th House 2nd House
Freedom and Self-Awareness 77-84 9th House 3rd House
Let me give you a few quick examples of the Progressing Life Axis to wet your appetite for this perspective. My purpose here is only to introduce the movement of the Life Axis.
Pope Francis
Having addressed Pope Francis in our chapter on the Lunation Point, lets return to him and his election by the papal enclave on March 13, 2013. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on December 17th, 1936. His ascension to the Papacy occurs when he is almost three months beyond his 76th birthday. His Life Axis will come back to the MH/IC if he lives to be 84.32 years old. But at this time, the Life Axis was at 25’32” of Pisces/Virgo near the end of his eighth/second house. I called this stage that of Surrender (for the Solar Ego) and Redemption (for the Lunar Self). For Pope Francis, this axis is colored by the themes of Virgo service and Pisces sacrifice. The Life Axis has recently crossed over the Neptune/Saturn opposition and is strengthening the Neptune in particular by virtue of the relationship with Pisces.
His progressing Lunation Point was also highlighting Neptune. Most compelling however, is the almost exact waxing square between the Life Axis and the natal Sun in Sagittarius in the sixth house. His natal Sun is sharing equally with both the Solar and Lunar pole of his Life Axis. That Sagittarius Sun is challenged to manifest itself to a higher and higher potential, all within this Saturn/Neptune and Pisces/Virgo context. This all, as he is compelled to become the spiritual figurehead of the world-wide Catholic order. We could never have predicted from looking at his chart at birth, that this is how he would have manifested his karma in this lifetime. This could have been a time in his life when nothing of this sort manifested, for lack of foundational actions earlier in life. But we can easily see that Jorge Bergoglio was ready to embrace the opportunity, to further work with these energies.
Barack Obama
I will always remember the feeling in my core. November 4th, 2008; Barack Obama walked with his family onto the stage at Grant Park in Chicago to give his victory speech. His grandmother, who had essentially raised him, had passed two days earlier. And on this night, his presence as the first black president elect of the United States of America brought poignant tears of humility and happiness to millions. I’m unashamed to admit I was one of those teary eyed witnesses, in front of my TV with close friends in my living room!
Astrologers were buzzing about this election for a year in advance because transiting Uranus and Saturn were forming an exact opposition in the night sky. The symbol of conservative stability and the symbol of evolutionary change were aligning across the axis of the zodiac on election day! Obama certainly seemed to represent Uranus, and “change”. McCain seemed to stand for Saturn, for staying with the established order. How was this going to play out?
Naturally, I had looked ahead at this chart with insane curiosity about whether it might hint at a victory for Obama. He was forty-seven years old and his vertical Life Axis of birth had inverted through mid-life and was now progressing once again through the fourth and tenth houses of his natal chart. I defined this stage that begins at mid-life as Leadership (for the Lunar Self) and Healing (for the Solar Ego). Remember, here the tide has risen high for both the Self and the Ego. We are all doing different things on our own personal high tide. On election day Obama’s “Life Axis” the spine of his “Cross of Matter” was reverberating with 20′ 38″ of Gemini/Sagittarius. His Life Axis formed almost an exact square to the Saturn/Uranus opposition in the sky, which lay at 18′ 58 of Virgo/Pisces. Meanwhile, his Progressed Lunation Point was forming almost an exact Sextile/Trine relationship with the same Uranus/Saturn configuration. It was located at 18′ 02″ Taurus. I could not have known whether these cycles were a omen for victory or defeat, but they sure revealed to me that he belonged where he was, firmly in the middle of the decision that the nation was about to make!
Brittany Spears
On January 31st of 2008, pop icon Brittany Spears was the subject of all the wrong kind of news surrounding her personal life. Wildly successful since her debut album in 1999, she was involuntarily hospitalized in a psychiatric ward. Trouble had been building for a few years. Just one year prior, pictures of her shaved head dominated the news cycle and she admitted herself into numerous drug rehab facilities. In October of 2007, she had lost physical custody of her toddlers to husband, Kevin Federline. And in December of that year she began a relationship with a paparazzi who would later be accused by her father of conspiring with others to take control of her financial affairs from her. One year later, in January of 2009, the courts imposed a restraining order on the now ex-boyfriend, Adnan Ghalib.
On January 31st, 2008, she was twenty seven years old and The Solar Ego pole of her Life Axis was approaching her natal Pluto, late in the first house. There was a 1’25” gap between the two. I define this stage as Initiative (Solar Ego) and Commitment (Lunar Self) She is Libra rising so the initiative of her Solar Ego is naturally inclined to be responsive to “others” needs, at this time. As she approached the Plutonian lord of the repressed unconscious, she was being challenged to be more emotionally and intellectually honest with herself, her strengths, weaknesses and her goals moving forward in life but also in relation to specific other people with whom she would or could have meaningful relationships. Indeed, she had multiple outer figures who wanted to take control of her life. From 1999 through early 2006, her rise to stardom had been uninterrupted. But as her Life Axis approached natal Saturn in the first house, she had experienced two failed marriages and she delivered two children fathered by Federline. The Saturn/Pluto combination in Libra was proving to be a very challenging time to her Solar Ego development.
Note that Jupiter follows Pluto in the developmental sequence. It is at 01′ 00″ Scorpio, in the beginning of the second house. When the Life Axis passes into the Second House in this fifth of twelve stages in life, I called that the stage of “Building Power”. Brittany opened her “Circus” tour on March 3, 2009. On August 6, 2009, the Ego side of Life Axis formed an exact conjunction with that natal Jupiter. The first two legs of her tour were complete, North America and Europe. She was on hiatus but came back for two more legs, North America and Australia. The tour finished on November 29, 2009, amassing in the vicinity of $131,000,000 dollars. It appears that she had put the tumultuous days of Saturn/Pluto behind her and there have been no repeats of the power struggles and public shaming that had accompanied her everywhere for a few years as she passed through Saturn and Pluto.
Calculating Your Progressing Life Axis
I invite the reader to click on Your Birth Chart so that you may discover your own Progressing Life Axis for any date of your choosing. The LA glyph will appear in the outer wheel of the chart along with the transits of the day chosen. It is helpful to look backwards in time to see how these cycles played into the life you have already lived. This is free to the reader and you can enter as many charts as you wish into your own private database within this site.
After entering your chart, you can also compare your progressing Life Axis and Lunation Point with the planetary alignments of various friends or lovers in your life. It’s equally as helpful to look at the synastry with those whom you share competitive bonds or bonds of outright discomfort.
If the community of astrologers finds these tools useful, they will eventually find their way into the contemporary software available to us.