Brad Kochunas – embracing the darkness – Astroinform with Marjorie Orr

Brad Kochunas’ reflections on astrology, soul, myth and imagination are gathered together in his latest book Dark Skies.

Thought-provoking and mystical in approach, his insights and attitudes are informed by his work for three decades in prison mental health. He puts forward the idea of ‘therapeutic astrology’ rather than psychological astrology which latter he says is about “striving for personal growth, self-improvement, actualization of potential and/or making out lives better.”  He does not do predictions at all and says the focus should be not what we want out of life but what life wants of us.

‘Therapeutic astrology dedicated to exploring and discovering what psyche and soul desire, rather than ego, brings us to a different understanding of what is means to be human.”

I struggle with some of his concepts and outlook but what made sense on second reading was his notion of sitting with the darkness – in prison with men guilty of horrific crimes for whom there was no redemptive healing and no future as we understand it bar an acceptance of soul. Which he relates in ordinary life to a state in which ‘each carry the underworld as a constant companion.’ And quotes Jung as saying: “The serious problems in life are never fully solved. — The meaning and purpose of a problem seem to lie not in its solution but in our working at it incessantly.”

While it can sound nihilistic, especially as he points out in an American culture so geared towards optimism, sitting under a dark sky and being with the shadow can feel strangely reassuring. He quotes Thomas Moore in the Dark Nights of the Soul, “Many people claim to have integrated their shadow sides but that effort is itself a work against the dark.  The real task is to live in, and with, the darkness, appreciating its unredeemed value and loving its irreversible qualities.”

And W.B. Yeats: “Who can distinguish darkness from the soul?”

He regards the 4^th, 8^th and 12^th house as the carriers of the shadow with the houses that follow being the houses of identity – 1^st, 5^th, 9^th.

There are chart examples and interpretations of prison inmates and their counsellors, of the latter many have Pluto in the 12^th. As well as of Christopher Reeve and Michael Fox struck down by physical disabilities; David Bowie and other creative celebrities as well as notable criminals; and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

In troubled times where there is no escape from anxiety, uncertainty and fear, a zen-like attitude can be helpful. It is also true in his words that  “Reluctance to engage darkness, silence and emptiness are symptoms of a diminished cultural soul and an arid spirituality.”

My Earth, Air, Cardinal and Jupiterian temperament baulks at the passivity of some of his ideas if taken to extreme. But it is a constructive antidote to a striving, got-to-get-better approach. When you can’t fix it, sit with it.

One other perceptive insight on Neptune which has been degraded in recent times by conspiracy theories, delusions and the like.

‘In Neptune’s association with Pisces, we can never overlook that Pisces is the matrix out of which something new arises to birth. It is the fecund chaos present at the creation of the world. It is the massa confuse of alchemy.   The Piscean moment before manifestation, before birth, is the ultimate uncertainty and it is potent.”

Published by the Wessex Astrologer.