So, What Am I Doing Here, Anyway?

Great books help us to learn astrology. A book like Ray Grasse’s new essay collection points to why astrology is worth practicing in the first place.

Grasse is a decades-long editor of The Mountain Astrologer magazine and has also worked with the Theosophical Society’s Quest Magazine. He’s a painter, a filmmaker, a photographer, a student in some of the major meditation traditions.

The title of this collection, So, What am I Doing Here, Anyway? frames some intertwined questions. How does Grasse do astrology? Why does astrology exist? and across eras and cultures? Why do we exist?

Some of the essays bear directly on astrological techniques, and they’re thought-provoking.  Grasse starts with a pithy piece about Sun sign astrology. Because one out of every twelve people have the same Sun sign, what’s the use? Grasse’s point is that it’s worth knowing, broadly, how different people are, based even generally on whether they’re from Brazil, Germany, or Japan. Don’t underestimate something as fundamental as Sun signs, is his point. There’s value in generalities.

Grasse studies what he calls “resurrectional transits.”  Transits to the charts of people who’ve died, especially famous people, seem to reverberate long after their deaths. There’s often renewed public interest in an artist’s work or in events surrounding a now-deceased public figure. Why? Grasse’s explanation is key to his view of astrology. A natal chart continues working “because it is an imprint in the cosmic mind. Whereas the physical body comes and goes, the horoscope has a life of its own. Unlike a purely physical entity or phenomenon, the chart is essentially a mental phenomenon in the mind of—dare I say it? – God, Allah, Brahma, or as Plotinus called it, the One.”

The natal chart as a “cosmic imprint” explains why astrologies are plural and diverse, from the Hindu-based schools, to the Mayan, Aztec, Egyptian, Chinese, to the contemporary western practice of psychological astrology. A “symbolic text can be read on different levels,” just like scholars can interpret a great literary work in many ways, all of them valid. There’s no need to call one astrology correct and another not. Grasse posits that “a given civilization comes up with precisely the sky-maps and belief systems symbolically appropriate to that culture at that time.”

How does astrology work, though? Grasse recalls that a few months after the 9/11 attack in New York, he was checking his ephemeris for the daily transits when he noticed that Mars in Pisces was forming a stressful t-square with the Saturn/Pluto opposition, the most striking aspect on 9/11/2001. Later, on December 22, 2001, a man boarding an American Airlines flight was caught trying to set off explosives hidden in his shoes. The symbolism was uncanny and unnerving. Pisces rules the feet. Mars is explosive and makes war.  An international incident ensued when a man tried to wage war by literally setting his feet on fire.
To the extent that astrology “works,” it does so symbolically, linking earthly and celestial phenomena. Astrology is an application of the esoteric principle of correspondences.

Grasse elaborates in his essay, “Toward a Grand Unified Theory of Synchronicity.”  Here he’s not talking about isolated incidences that seem to prove the theorem “as above, so below.” He departs from Carl Jung’s notion of synchronicity because, for Grasse, “individual human psychologies needn’t even be present or involved for ‘synchronicities’ to occur.” Grasse proposes a transpersonal “symbolist” worldview that “regards the cosmos as akin to a great dream,” where “synchronicity is the key to a dramatically different cosmology than what is suggested by conventional science… a worldview that is both multi-leveled in meanings and levels, and interconnected in ways far beyond what the literal eye can possibly perceive.”

He carries this symbolist view into his last essay, “Legends of the Fall,” an archetypal reinterpretation of the Biblical story of Eden. When God told Adam and Eve not to eat from a certain tree and, at the same time, gave them free will, the stage was set for the pair to defy the Creator’s instruction. The expulsion of Adam and Eve into the world of imperfection and hardship is seen in exoteric theology as “a tragic fall into a realm of sin, suffering, and struggle.” But from Grasse’s symbolist view, the fall from perfection is the first step on a path of awakening. As Grasse writes, “it is through our soul’s interaction with this ‘rough’ world and its hardships that something of great beauty arises.” It’s precisely because of our worldly flaws and travails—symbolically displayed in each person’s unique natal map – that “we also learn to develop sensitivity, empathy, and compassion—qualities far harder to come by in idyllic Eden.” The “fall” is an invitation to return to an inner Eden.
That’s what we’re doing here, anyway.

Sara Diamond www.facingnorth.net

An astrological consultation is commonly referred to as a “reading.” Yet what do we mean by this term? It is an activity so familiar that we take it for granted, and thus we overlook the fact that reading is actually a form of enchantment. In his latest book, Ray Grasse aims to refamiliarize us with the mystery of reading — or more specifically, with the mystery of astrological reading. He opens with a reminder that we dwell in a world of meaningfulness, and that to read the “signs” that surround us is to engage the imagination. “It’s our imagination that allows us to conceive new futures, step into other dimensions, and open up to possibilities never before considered.” We begin then to recognize that human beings are more closely related to the invisible than to the visible. Reading serves as a conduit between these realms.

Consisting of a series of 39 interlinked essays, the book is structured along lines similar to Grasse’s previous collections, StarGates: Essays on Astrology, Symbolism and the Synchronistic Universe and When the Stars Align: Reflections on Astrology, Life, Death, and Other Mysteries. This latest offering “explores a diverse range of subjects that sometimes requires ways of imagining you may not have entertained before.” The promise of being led into a region as tenebrous and bewildering as the imagination might give some readers pause, but with Grasse as our guide we are in capable hands. He has over four decades of experience as an astrologer, and he writes in a style that is as clear as it is graceful. He knows what he’s doing and is most generous in sharing the knowledge gained from his wide-ranging spiritual explorations. Some of the chapters focus on nuts-and-bolts astrological technique, such as the “Late Bloomer” effect of Saturn in a chart; others broach topics ranging from Jazz to Bigfoot, while others are largely autobiographical.

Varied as these essays are in terms of subject matter, they share a philosophical perspective that Grasse refers to as the “Symbolist worldview,” also known as the “Theory of Signatures” or “the Doctrine of Correspondence.” It is a venerable tradition, extending back in Western Philosophy at least to Plato, and includes such notable figures as Marsilio Ficino, Emanuel Swedenborg, Jakob Böhme, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to name but a few. In brief, the Symbolist worldview is based on the notion that direct correspondences exist between the spiritual and the material realms, establishing a divine harmony. As a result of this correlation, the physical world can be “read” as if it were a book that reveals the secrets of the spiritual world. Such a book, however, is not to be read literally but figuratively. Analogy is the primary mode of expression here. As Grasse puts it in the marvelous essay titled “Toward a Grand Unified Theory of Synchronicity”: “when perceived through the eye of metaphor, one’s vision opens up to a far broader universe of meanings and acausal connections.” His point here has broad implications for the practicing astrologer. Foremost among them: beware of taking things too literally.

So, What Am I Doing Here, Anyway? also serves to remind us that reading is a form of seeking counsel, whether it be in the pages of a book or in the twinkling configurations of heavenly bodies. One of the great pleasures of reading Ray Grasse is the attention he pays to what actually happens during an astrological consultation. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the book’s longest essay, “Some Simple Tips from a Long-Time Astrologer.”

Consider, for example, this advice about astrological consultation: “the first thing you say to a client about their horoscope should be positive, because your initial comments will tend to make a profound and lasting impression.” These words ought to serve as the astrologer’s equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath — First, do no harm — and should be taken to heart by any who would present themselves as astrological “counselors.” For its insight and practical wisdom, “Some Simple Tips” is essential reading for all students of astrology, no matter how seasoned they might be. In fact, the more experience one has as an astrologer, the more valuable these “tips” will prove, as they are drawn from what might be called “Beginner’s Mind Wisdom.” The allusion here is to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi’s famous saying: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s are few.” Near the conclusion of “Some Simple Tips,” Grasse sums up his approach to the practice of astrology by phrasing it as a humble and straightforward question: “How can I help my clients best take advantage of their horoscopic patterns, whether those be natal or predictive, while helping them avoid or redirect their more difficult potentials?”

Ray Grasse has furnished us with an engaging and important contribution on the theory and practice of astrology. He demonstrates once again how the horoscope “provides us with a useful tool for both understanding and navigating our way through this rich landscape of meaningfulness, while simultaneously shining a light on the profound interconnectedness between our inner and outer worlds.”

So, What Am I Doing Here, Anyway? is a treasure house of advice on the art of reading in an astrological way.

John P. O’Grady

I could sum up this book with just one phrase, ‘thought-provoking’!  At the beginning of the book, on an otherwise blank page, there appears a quote by Goethe:

“Few men have imagination enough for the truth of reality.”

This was something to contemplate, as I read through each essay, then I was further intrigued by Grasse’s early statement, “Having one’s imagination stretched to new boundaries – is there anything more important?” An interesting set up for the fascinating and inspiring read this turned out to be.

In general, there is an easy flow to the writer’s style as he ponders the seemingly imponderable. Each chapter is an ‘essay’. Some relate a story, while others pose a profound question for which there is no obvious answer. Though there is room for us to consider our own views within the context of the material, Grasse is not shy to offer a firm opinion.  He offers ‘evidence’ to support his thinking (some astrological, some factual), and in many of the individual chapters he provides a clear conclusion to summarize his main idea(s). Each essay stands on its own but, like each individual person within the collective, they all have significant meaning and relevance to the whole.

What Grasse seems to be emphasizing is that each of us is unique. He says, ‘We live our lives within vast interlocking fields of meaning, with each of our personal dramas fitting into the larger “story” of the cosmos itself.’ In one essay, he looks back at the 1960s, contemplating ‘an explosive awakening of the collective imagination taking place, not just in the arts but in our openness to what was possible in reality itself.’ Those of us who were alive in the sixties will have our own take on that decade but, for me, this was not just a trip down “memory lane”, it was a re-framing of key events, people, and innovations…what they represented, then and now. How appropriate that he references the opening lines of Rod Serling’s, The Twilight Zone,

‘You’re traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.’

Introducing this collection of essays, Grasse tells us the material ‘sometimes requires ways of imagining you may not have entertained before.’ This turned out to be very much the case. However, I would add to that by saying I have not often come across a perspective that so clearly expresses some of my own ponderings. Grasse seems to have deftly translated those ideas into words…words that I could have written myself if only I had the skill he demonstrates. Having fully digested this book, I am now left to ponder some new questions of my own. With that in mind, I plan to explore some of Ray Grasse’s earlier work for additional insight, and to further stretch my imagination. Thank You Ray!

Jayne Logan for www.astrobookclub.com

“I very often sit and admire the work of Ray Grasse – his work has a lot of depth to it from all directions.” Deborah Houlding

“Ray Grasse is one of the hidden geniuses of contemporary spirituality.” Richard Smoley, author Inner Christianity, Introduction to the Occult