Mark Jones Astrology Blog

“The philosopher of mind Phillip Goff points out with particular verve that since Galileo, the physical sciences have proceeded by putting aside the ontological question (the is question) and focussing only on the behaviour or structure question: ‘All the properties physics ascribes to fundamental particles are characterized in terms of behavioural dispositions. Physics tells us nothing about what an electron is beyond what it does.’ ” -The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge by Jeffrey J. Krippal

In a public lecture held at the Bristol Science Centre, I asked theoretical physicist Brian Greene a question on the possible multiverses that comprise our universe: what do we know about or think about reality prior to the Big Bang or the reality that the Big Bang emerged from? He smiled, recognizing, I believe, my attempt to elucidate a metaphysical point as he readily admitted that even the most experimental modern astrophysics does not go there. It was when I was travelling in Los Angeles the following year that I realized the author of the book I was reading on George Harrison was Brian Greene’s brother, a Krishna devotee. Somehow this seemed apt.

I'm thrilled to share this new podcast with me and Adam Sommer. In this episode we discuss the planetary nodes and what light that sheds on our current world situation. We also discuss the charts of parents and their child (including my family) as well as the Pluto ingress into Capricorn and the economic problems of the West - The USA especially.  Even though we are going through challenging times we leave off on the idea that life always has a crisis of meaning present in it and our current situation may just expose it more...

Mark recently joined the Magic of the Spheres Podcast with Sabrina Monarch. In this episode Sabrina and Mark discuss Pluto and Virgo and Pluto in Virgo specifically, but this episode is full of universals, regardless of what we have in Virgo in our charts - we all have the experience of self-analysis, self-criticism, perfectionism, and learning how to relate to our pursuit of self-refinement and the capacity to be introspective and to analyze ourselves without falling into a great abyss of self-doubt in the process. 

At the extremely popular United Astrology Conference of 2018 in Chicago I presented a talk on the planetary nodes. Actually, perhaps overcrowded might be a more accurate description: despite having a double room for the talk, it was full to the point where people sat cross-legged and so close to me that they couldn’t even see the powerpoint! At *slide 44 I presented information on 5 of the major world conflicts of modern history: the American War of Independence, the US Civil War, the Taiping Revolution, and the first and second World Wars. I detailed how they began with an outer planet conjunction to, or square to, the south node of Saturn (around 22°-23° Capricorn) and ended when that contact moved on to aspect the south node of Neptune (around 8°-10° Aquarius). In that hot and crowded space, with some angry people turned away prior to the talk, there was a visible gasp at the information I had provided.

“While Adam I wants to conquer the world, Adam II wants to obey a calling to serve the world. While Adam I is creative and savors his own accomplishments, Adam II sometimes renounces worldly success and status for the sake of some sacred purpose. While Adam I asks how things work, Adam II asks why things exist, and what ultimately we are here for. While Adam I wants to venture forth, Adam II wants to return to his roots and savor the warmth of a family meal. While Adam I’s motto is “success”, Adam II experiences life as a moral drama. His motto is “Charity, love, and redemption.”

In this passage, David Brooks, from his excellent book The Road to Character, interprets Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik who argued that in the creation two Adams were formed, the Adam of outer life and the Adam of the inner world; the secret Adam.

In our contemporary crisis, we experience the noise of the political world where people shout at us to gain our attention and to support their cause, the noise of the market-place sellers who gather to offer their wares, and the ultimate expression of that market-place online where the stuff of people’s intimate lives is cut-up to offer clickbait to our curiosity and our troubling desire to stare deeply into the fame and the pain of others.

In my second newsletter of the new year, new decade, I would like to share another longer passage from the introduction to the book that I am writing on the nodal axis of the Moon; The Destiny Line. This passage refers to one of the most problematic areas, conceptually at least, within the field of astrology: what is the level of meaning that astrology itself rests upon? I focus on, what to me, seems obvious: that the individual person is more important than their natal chart. However, I observe that many of the ways astrology is actually utilised or related to within the astrological community, betray a series of attitudes wherein this does not seem to be the case:

“Astrology is a portal then to the potential of a human life; a window to the soul. Astrology is a symbolic language that works in service to life; in service to the journey of the individual through life. I would make a crucial philosophical distinction that clarifies my sense of the role of astrology. In Philosophy, ontology is the philosophy of being. I would say that astrology has a tendency to express an ontological categorisation error, in that it can unconsciously ascribe ontological reality to the natal chart – i.e. it can give the chart a life or being of its own. In my view this is not the case. The individual whose chart it is, they have life. The individual soul has being and therefore has an ontological priority above that of the natal chart. The natal chart is a symbolic expression of that life. Like a poem written by the pattern of the sky at the moment you were born the natal chart expresses in symbolic language potentials that you may, or may not, realize within your life. All complex philosophical language aside – the quality of the individual life, the nature of the individual soul is more important than the natal chart. The natal chart exists to serve that life.

That the individual is more important that their chart might seem obvious, yet some of the tacit assumptions we make about the power of astrology consistently undermine this distinction. There is nothing in your chart that can supersede the nature of your life. As astrologers we serve life most acutely when we listen to its complex expressions and allow the nature of life itself to shape our astrological insights.”

Happy New Year Everyone!

I hope you all had a festive holiday period. Mine was a quiet one, at home with my family; a welcome break from all the activity of the preceding months of work. My daughter was not old enough to understand the meaning of Christmas but she was the perfect age to embody it. Hanging out with her, chasing her away from frequent attempts to depopulate the bauble population on the Christmas tree was a sheer delight!

In the last days of the decade I began to write on the Lunar Nodes. Now, at the end of the first week of the new decade I have completed a draft of chapter 1 and the initial section of chapter 2 in what will become a 4 chapter book.  The Destiny Line will explore the nodal axis of the Moon as a dynamic system: like two poles that contain the flow of an electrical current, the nodes of the Moon together hold the charge of meaning for the individual life. The book will expand on my prior writing (the second chapter of Healing the Soul: Pluto, Uranus and the Lunar Nodes) and teaching (an extensive series of webinars for the Astrology University) on the nodes of the Moon to present a technically simple but psychologically profound template for the interpretive power of the natal chart.

An unexpected opportunity left me able to pick up work on the Planetary Node research recently.  I was able to write a final chapter for the book as well as being able to respond to edits, so it looks very likely that early next year the book will finally be out. It will represent decades of research for me and three close years of research for me and my primary researcher Patrick Graham. We very much hope to make a substantial contribution to the field with our work.

After such a long period of investigation I can genuinely say that I experience the extra information that the planetary nodes offer as akin to an invisible architecture behind human history on an individual and collective level. 

For example, let’s take the chart of Malala Yousafzai (12 July 1997 8:30 am Mingaora, Pakistan. Rodden Rating C) which I will be looking at (from a non-planetary node perspective) on my upcoming Astrology University Summit lecture on the weekend of the 26/27 Oct, 2019.