Becca Tarnas, PhD - The Imaginal Realm: Astrology, Mythology, and Middle Earth

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My guest today is the brilliantly insightful,

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creative and wise, Becca Tarnas.

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Becca is an adjunct professor at both Pacifica Graduate Institute and the

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California Institute of Integral Studies.

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She is an astrological counselor, writer.

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And artist, and her love of JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth knows no bounds.

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If you're a Lord of the rings fan, this episode is for you.

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I have all kinds of feelings about this interview.

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We recorded it in December of 2021, almost a year ago.

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That means some of Becca's astrological forecasts are outdated.

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And I'm sorry, I didn't get this interview up in time for optimum relevance.

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Still it's a wonderful conversation and well-worth sharing now.

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And the forecast are only a small fraction of it.

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And it's interesting to consider them in the context of all that's

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happened over the last 10 months.

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What we're going to hit on in this conversation is the intersection

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of astrology and mythology.

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And we're going to look at the myths of Persephone and Demeter,

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and Hades, and Eros and Psyche.

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And then the second part of the interview really gonna get into Lord of the

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Rings and what is the Imaginal Realm.

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And I'm going to stop talking now and let's get into Becca.

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Becca, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.

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I am delighted to have you here.

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And you are the first astrologer I have interviewed for the mythic podcast.

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Will you share your origin story with us?

Becca: 00:02:08

I always have to start by saying I'm a second generation astrologer

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and that my father's an astrologer.

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He started working with astrology in the 1970s at Esalen Institute when he

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was doing research with Stanislav Grof on psychedelic healing modalities and

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they encountered astrology as a way to.

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Basically understand the kind of experience that someone was going to have.

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They had been trying to figure out why there was such variability with

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psychedelic experiences between people, between sessions and none of

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the psychological tests that, that they were applying were illuminating.

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It was a big mystery at the time.

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And someone suggested a, an astrologer named suggested, have

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you tried transit astrology?

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And so they tried it out and they realized that it illuminated the experiences

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in a way that nothing else was.

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So my father threw himself into studying astrology and looking at his

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own transits and studying the charts and transits of everyone in the Esalen

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community and over 30 years built up a very large body of research.

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And so this was the millieu I was growing up in and the astrological

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language was used in my household, but it wasn't taught to me.

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Anytime that I had astrology come more directly into my

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life, it was my direct asking.

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So I think I was six years old and I asked for a reading and I remember

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that my dad was translating what the planetary archetypes or to me using

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mythic language, because I loved myth.

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I was deeply steeped in a number of different mythologies and pantheons.

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And so that was a language that made sense to me.

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but I never thought that my path would lead toward being an astrologer at all.

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I was.

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Going through undergrad, I was a theater major, really engaged in performance.

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I was an environmental studies double major because I had become really invested

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in understanding the ecological crisis.

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How did we get here?

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And yet through an interesting series of events, I was drawn back first to

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my father's work and then being really compelled by his students and decided

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that this was something I wanted to understand and wanted to learn.

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And as I began to pick it up, I realized it came quite naturally to me, probably

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because I had grown up in that millieu of hearing the language spoken and even

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getting the emotional resonance off, when my parents would talk about, oh,

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he has a Saturn-Pluto transit versus, oh, he's going through a Jupiter

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Uranus transit like that, just set in.

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And, so over the last decade, it's really become one of the central focuses

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of my work and, working as a counseling astrologer or working as a teacher and

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as a continuing student as well, I'm excited to keep learning new techniques

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and modalities and branches of astrology.

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So as much as I'm in a teacher counselor role, that I'm also, I

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think always going to be a student.

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So that's some of my astrological background and story.

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you never said his name.

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Your father is Richard Tarnas.

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created the, philosophy, cosmology and consciousness program at CIIS.

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Is he still on faculty there?

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He is still on faculty there.

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He's been slowly over the last several years, decreasing his teaching

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because he is orienting more toward writing several books that he's

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still wanting to bring forward.

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He wrote two big books, Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche.

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And he has a few others in the works.

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So he's in a process of transitioning more from teaching into writing.

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And I know that's where his passion really lies right now.

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And you are on faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute.

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I'm an adjunct there.

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Yeah.

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I teach as an adjunct, both at Pacifica and at CIIS right now.

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So wearing multiple hats between institutions and getting to

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teach a variety of classes in each place, which is wonderful.

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What an exciting place to stand in the world, getting to do counseling

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psychology, be in the educational realm with these, these schools that are doing

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such extraordinary work And I'm curious about what this looks like from here.

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You mentioned, when you were a child and being very engaged in myth before

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astrology came along, so mythology gave you a context for astrology and

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that's what happened to me as well.

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The way I think of it as this, you have all of the mathematics, the go into the

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calculations of astrology, but then you also have this imaginal component of

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astrology, which is stories in the sky.

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And somehow these things come together.

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What does that look like to you?

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I come back to the word astrology, Astro logos.

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It's the language of the stars.

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And as astrology was initially being developed, it was a means to interpret

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and understand the will of the God.

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So the stars, the night sky was seen to be like a, almost like a tablet on

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which the will of the gods was expressed.

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And it was the task of astrologers and of priests and priestesses, to be able

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to interpret that, to understand what is the gods' intent for humanity, and then

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how can we best participate in that?

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That's the importance of being able to interpret it.

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So as far as my understanding goes, the planets, for example, which we have

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named after gods-- Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, these are named after the gods.

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The Greco- Roman names for them.

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But of course there are many names for the planets, from multiple cultures

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around the world, and we can see the meanings associated with the planets

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and how they are expressed in a variety of ways through different mythic

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pantheons in a variety of cultures.

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So my understanding is that the planets themselves were never seen as gods they're

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seen as the seat of the gods, like the physical correlate, but not Like when

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we look at the planet Venus, that is Venus completely as a goddess, it's more

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like the goddess Venus is expressing through the physical planet Venus.

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There's a correlation between them.

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And it's a body that is special to her and through which her will

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is expressed and that in that way, the myth and the astrology are very

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related, but the astrology is almost like a space for translation space

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for interpretation and communication between human beings and the gods.

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That's beautiful.

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I've never heard it expressed that way.

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The planets as the seat of the gods If you were giving.

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An astrological reading a transit reading, how might you translate an astrological

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configuration into a mythic story?

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There's a really great example that's in the sky right

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now and that's going to be in the sky for the next several, not

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just weeks, but actually months.

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It's a rare combination to have for this long.

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So at the moment in December of 2021, Venus has ingressed into

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the sign of Capricorn and is currently in a conjunction or

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right next to the planet Pluto.

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So where to look up, we would need a telescope to see Pluto,

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but if we were to look up.

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At the night sky, we would see Venus and Pluto seemingly next to each

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other in the sky, even though Pluto is so much further away than Venus.

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It's like at the new moon, for example, the sun and the moon are in the same

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place in the sky, but we know they're not actually next to each other.

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They just appear next to each other.

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So that's what a conjunction is.

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And Venus.

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In terms of the astrological, meaning relates to love, to beauty, to attraction,

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desire, sensuality, sexuality, pleasure.

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The side that relates to beauty is also connected to aesthetics, to style, to the

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arts, all forms of artistic creativity.

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Painting, drawing, dance, music, sculpture.

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Venus oversees the whole domain of the arts.

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So that's Venus.

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And then Pluto is the archetype that's related to the depths and the

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underworld and intensities and extremes.

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It's related to the death-rebirth mystery.

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It's destruction and creation.

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It's the elemental powers of nature.

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It's instinctual.

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It's libidinal.

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And Pluto has a special relationship to the underground, the underworld

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in a mythic sense, a religious sense, but also like the urban underworld,

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the criminal underworld, the sexual underworld, any domain where we

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think of a kind of underbelly.

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And when Venus and Pluto are combined as archetypal principles, that tends

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to manifest whether in a birth chart or in terms of a personal trends

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that were in this case at the world transit in terms of deep, intense,

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Romantic relational sexual dynamics.

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There can be a very beautiful depth to it.

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The capacity to be transformed by love, to be transmuted by love, but also to

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be destroyed by love and by sexuality.

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There's a whole side of Venus-Pluto that's around the edgy and

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the taboo and the dangerous.

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And so there can be a connection to sexual transgression and assault, and

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really the darker sides of sexuality, the intensely problematic sides.

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And so this alignment of Venus and Pluto is actually going to be in the sky for

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several weeks because Venus is about to turn retrograde, meaning It's going

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to be lingering in the same area of sky for much longer than it normally would.

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And then appearing to move backwards compared to the motion that's usually

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moving in and then moving forward again.

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And so it's just passing back and forth with Pluto, making a very

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long conjunction between the two.

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Usually Venus would just pass by.

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It would be, we would experience that for about 10 days in the collective.

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This is months of it.

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And of course we could look in terms of certain world events

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that are unfolding right now.

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There's a big trial happening at the moment looking at sex

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trafficking and so forth.

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So it's bubbling up in the collective.

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People can probably identify this in terms of their personal lives

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too, in a positive way as well.

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There's a beautiful side of Venus-Pluto that has to do with that depth and

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rawness that we can bring forward in love, in relationship, in sexuality.

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So that's another illumination of the astrological side.

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How would we relate to that mythically?

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One beautiful mythic example of Venus-Pluto is the Persphone-Hades myth.

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And there's a number of different ways to read this myth.

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One way that we can read that myth is that Persphone, who's a kind of beautiful

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Venusian maiden figure is abducted against her will and taken into Hades' underworld.

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And in that way, it is a kind of rape story.

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There's another way of interpreting it as well, where Persephone may be

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The willing initiate wanting to be brought into the sexual underworld as

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a way to actually fully flower as a woman, as a goddess, as a fertility

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goddess-- being brought into that space.

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And what is so profound about that myth and why I tend to lean toward this

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other interpretation is because she willingly eats the pomegranate seeds.

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She eats six pomegranate seeds, the fruit of the underworld, and

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that guarantees that she will come back for six months of the year.

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Every year.

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This myth is mapped onto our seasons.

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When Persphone is in the upper world with her mother Demeter, that's when it's

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spring and summer, then she makes her descent into the underworld in the autumn

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and spends the winter there with Hades.

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And she becomes Queen of the Underworld.

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She's crowned through that experience and that is a Venus-Pluto story.

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And a lot of people born with Venus-Pluto can feel a sense of relationship to it.

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Whether that's the more problematic interpretation-- the abduction,

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the rape, there can be a feeling of identification with that, of course.

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And then also there can be an identification with what it means to

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really own the power of the sexual underworld and to become queen of that.

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So that's one particular mythic interpretation of the Venus-Pluto dynamic.

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Another that I would look to in terms of fairytale, it's a similar archetypal

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pattern, but a much later story is the Beauty in the Beast fairytale.

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Very similar to the Hades-Persephone myth, but also very different.

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And we can see the beast as a reflection of Pluto, of the intense

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animalistic instinctual libido.

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And then Belle beauty as Venus and in they're coming together, we can also

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recognize how both parts live within us and the beast can be beautiful

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and the beauty can be beastly.

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So these are some of the themes mythically, and in terms of fairytales

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that might come up, but even as metaphors during a Venus-Pluto at a time.

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So I hope that helps answer the question that you've brought forward there.

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The story that is rising from me right now is Cupid and Psyche, which

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also shares so many elements of Beauty and the Beast and the Persphone myth.

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And when Psyche, in this case at the behest of Venus, Venus sends psyche

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into the underworld to retrieve the beauty from did I get that right?

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So Venus sends psyche to the underworld to get the breadth of beauty from Persephone

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and she lingers and gets stuck down there.

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I'm trying to remember how she gets out of the underworld that she it's, it's not

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Hermes coming to get her, or is it, it is Hermes coming to get her Cupid intervenes

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and says and says, I want to marry her.

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And with his help with Hermes help, he comes in, brings her back to Olympus.

Becca: 00:18:24

In so many of the Venus-Pluto type myths, hermes is the one who intervenes.

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So in the Hades-Persphone myth, Hermes comes at Demeter's behest,

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and actually a Zeus's behest because Demeter is destroying the earth,

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basically searching for her daughter.

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So Hermes is the only one who can traverse between the

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upper, middle, and underworlds.

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So Hermes goes into the Underworld and retrieves Persephone.

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We see that in the myth you just brought up of Psyche and Eros.

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We also see it in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, another lovers

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descent into the underworld, and there too Hermes is the mediator.

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And interestingly at the end of December, Mercury will conjoin, Venus

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and Pluto in a triple conjunction.

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So that myth is actually playing out in the sky in a matter of weeks.

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I was recently doing a podcast with the astrologers, Austin Copic and

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Chris Brennan, and Austin Copic said that Hermes or Mercury is

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the first relationship counselor.

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And I thought that was such a brilliant way of putting it.

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Sometimes you need to talk it out, which is what Hermes helps us do.

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It strikes me how many different ways the imagination

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can go with these stories.

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When you were describing the story of Persephone and these two different

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perspectives, one where Persephone has no agency, the abduction version, and

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then another where there might be more to the story which gives Persephone

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agency, something the Greeks were not super down on was women having agency.

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One of the things that seems to be happening right now with the work

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of authors like Natalie Haynes and,

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Madeline Miller, they're reclaiming these female characters.

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Madeline Miller's Circe book is just phenomenal.

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They're reclaiming these characters and looking at the world through their

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eyes, fleshing out the myths from this unappreciated or unviewed perspective.

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And that's maybe something that we're doing as a culture right now.

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What do you make of what seems to be a Renaissance of the power of women right

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now, while also maybe a dissolution of gender the way we've known it?

Becca: 00:20:58

That's a really interesting question.

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And there's a whole variety of ways I feel compelled to answer it.

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It very much just feels connected to the great rebalancing that we're in right now.

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And like any rebalancing, there's always a potential to go too

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far in the opposite direction.

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What Jung called an enantiodromia where you're so extremely in one side, then

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you intensely go into the opposite.

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So with patriarchy being so dominant for so long, there can be intense switch

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into feminism that doesn't make space for men's experience or men's feelings.

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And ultimately, I think we need an equal balancing to play out in

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terms of gender, in terms of race relations, in so many different areas.

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Where I think we have to go into the extreme first in order to figure

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out what is a righteous balance.

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And in a lot of those areas we're nowhere near that, but this retelling

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of different stories from the perspective --Often it is the female

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perspective and often the vilified a female of what is going on for her.

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I think that's a really just beautiful reclamation of what has been oppressed.

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What's been denied, what has been relegated to the shadow, for example.

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And I think it speaks to the larger culture's rebalancing in terms of a

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collective integration of the shadow in that Jungian sense because what we realize

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when we do our own psychological work and we face the shadow within us and we

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integrate it is we actually recognize that the shadow isn't even the bad parts of us.

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We shouldn't have an equation between the shadow and evil, but when you

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go into the shadow and you recognize what you're afraid of or what you've

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been denying or what you've been calling evil, then you can start

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to realize it for what it truly is.

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I think that this is happening at a collective level in terms of our

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myths and in terms of our stories.

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Let's see it from the other side and retell the same story,

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but in a more balanced way.

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I think what we're moving towards in terms of storytelling is-- We're moving

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maybe a way from the hero-villain duality, which has been mapped onto, to a

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certain extent, the male-female duality.

Becca: 00:23:42

Not always, but we can probably pull up a bunch of myths and fairytales

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and stories that do that exact thing.

Boston: 00:23:49

I can find a few.

Boston: 00:23:50

Yeah.

Becca: 00:23:51

Yeah, there's a good number that are out there.

Becca: 00:23:54

And as we break that down, we still have to, if someone is a storyteller,

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we still have to tell compelling stories where there's challenge

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and there's adversity, but maybe it doesn't have to be a person or villain.

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Maybe it's something within us.

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I was really compelled by the Queen's Gambit, the series that came

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out last year, and it's based on a wonderful book of the same name.

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They did a really good job by the way of translating the book into the series.

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And what I love about that, there's so much, I love about

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that story, but the villain or the adversary is within the heroine.

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She has to overcome herself and her own challenges.

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No one outside of her is putting up these blocks.

Becca: 00:24:45

Her own struggle with addiction is actually far more of a challenge

Becca: 00:24:49

than her being a woman in the man's world of chess in the 1960s.

Becca: 00:24:54

And I think that was a really brilliant way of telling that story,

Becca: 00:24:57

because it could have been told where the patriarchal structures are her

Becca: 00:25:02

main challenge, but rather it's the internal demons that she has to face.

Becca: 00:25:07

And I feel like that's maybe where storytelling is moving more and more,

Becca: 00:25:12

less duality and splitting off and more of an owning of those challenges and

Becca: 00:25:17

the adversity and the shadow within.

Boston: 00:25:21

Oh, I hope you're right.

Boston: 00:25:22

It makes the hero's journey and internal shamanic awakening, an integration

Boston: 00:25:28

experience, instead of a go get the treasure or bring it back, be celebrated

Boston: 00:25:34

which we just see again and again, and it's of course, really compelling.

Boston: 00:25:38

That's a, there's a reason that has worked so well for so long, but I find that so

Boston: 00:25:45

much more interesting and then we get to look for the stories that we resonate

Boston: 00:25:49

with to find our own shadow pieces.

Boston: 00:25:53

It's funny, especially with fantasy and less science fiction, but fantasy

Boston: 00:25:58

stories like Lord of the Rings.

Boston: 00:26:00

the journey to Mordor feels like a journey into the most hidden

Boston: 00:26:06

part of the self where Frodo finally has to confront addiction.

Boston: 00:26:13

and he's actually saved by an even darker part.

Boston: 00:26:18

You know, Gollum is his, is his dark mirror image who rescues him

Boston: 00:26:24

by taking the ring and his finger.

Boston: 00:26:27

that is an inner journey as much as it is an outer journey.

Boston: 00:26:31

You wrote your dissertation on Lord of the Rings.

Becca: 00:26:37

I did.

Becca: 00:26:37

Yes.

Becca: 00:26:38

Comparing it to Jung's Red Book,

Boston: 00:26:41

Will you tell me about encountering Lord of

Boston: 00:26:45

the Rings for the first time?

Becca: 00:26:47

Oh, sure.

Boston: 00:26:48

Or it's or Tolkien for the first time.

Becca: 00:26:50

Yeah.

Becca: 00:26:52

My first encounter with Tolkien was when I was nine years old and my teacher,

Becca: 00:26:58

my grade school teacher, I went to a Waldorf school, was reading the Hobbit

Becca: 00:27:04

out loud to us a little bit every day.

Becca: 00:27:06

I think it was maybe like a chapter at lunch each day.

Becca: 00:27:09

And I was so compelled by this story.

Becca: 00:27:15

It wasn't just the actual plot of Bilbo and the dwarves and Gandalf

Becca: 00:27:21

the wizard making the journey to the lonely mountain to confront the dragon.

Becca: 00:27:27

It's an, it's the hero's journey all over again.

Becca: 00:27:29

That I was delighted by, but actually what really stuck with me

Becca: 00:27:33

as a nine-year-old was Middle Earth were the landscapes and the names,

Becca: 00:27:40

especially the names of different parts of the landscape or Middle Earth.

Becca: 00:27:46

So Rivendale and Mirkwood and Dale, and Esgaroth, and Erebor, like these

Becca: 00:27:54

names just rung through my soul.

Becca: 00:27:58

And I felt like I've been here before.

Becca: 00:28:02

This is familiar, and there was a deep sense of connection and knowing, and

Becca: 00:28:10

being able to actually see the world.

Becca: 00:28:13

I had a, and still do a very active imagination.

Becca: 00:28:18

But as a child, I was, I could see the stories very distinctly that I was

Becca: 00:28:22

reading or that were being told to me.

Becca: 00:28:24

But there was something in particular about this story and

Becca: 00:28:29

Middle Earth that it did feel like I could walk around in the world.

Becca: 00:28:36

And so I came home and told my mom how much I loved this story.

Becca: 00:28:42

And she said wait until you read The Lord of the Rings.

Becca: 00:28:44

And so it took a few more years.

Becca: 00:28:46

I was 13 when I started reading it.

Becca: 00:28:49

My brother gave me my first copies and I was part of a mother-daughter book club at

Becca: 00:28:55

the time that lasted for about five years.

Becca: 00:28:57

And that was my contribution because we would go around bringing different books.

Becca: 00:29:02

And so I wanted to read The Fellowship of the Ring and that was my first exposure.

Becca: 00:29:06

Actually got to read it in a fellowship.

Becca: 00:29:08

Women and young girls, which was a great way to do it.

Becca: 00:29:12

And the same thing happened-- I was in the world and the timing was perfect.

Becca: 00:29:19

I read it right before Peter Jackson's films came out, so it was in the

Becca: 00:29:24

collective zeitgeist, as well.

Becca: 00:29:26

But I was so glad that I'd read it first because I could see my own images of

Becca: 00:29:32

the story and then was blown away when I felt like certain parts of the film

Becca: 00:29:37

just captured it just as I had seen it.

Becca: 00:29:41

And for the next several years, Throughout my teens, I felt

Becca: 00:29:45

like I was living in two worlds.

Becca: 00:29:47

I had this normal teenage high school experience, and then

Becca: 00:29:52

overlaid on that was Middle Earth.

Becca: 00:29:55

I When I look back at my journals from the time that the handwriting looked Elvish.

Becca: 00:30:00

I was just completely immersed in not just the story, but this world.

Becca: 00:30:07

And so that was my introduction to it.

Becca: 00:30:10

Yeah.

Becca: 00:30:11

I haven't really gotten out.

Becca: 00:30:12

I tried to at one point in my early twenties, but then graduate school came

Becca: 00:30:17

along and I realized I could actually study Tolkien in that academic context

Becca: 00:30:21

and figure out what had happened to me and start studying the imagination

Becca: 00:30:26

from that more analytical perspective.

Becca: 00:30:29

But it all began with having The Hobbit read out loud to me

Becca: 00:30:32

and feeling like I've been here.

Becca: 00:30:34

I know this place.

Becca: 00:30:35

I know these names.

Boston: 00:30:38

What do you think that we can learn from Tokien and Lord of the rings?

Boston: 00:30:46

What's what does it offer the world right now?

Becca: 00:30:50

The Lord of the Rings, which was published in the mid fifties,

Becca: 00:30:53

has been applied so many times to different world situations and conflict.

Becca: 00:31:00

When it first came out, the people reading.

Becca: 00:31:04

It actually thought that Tolkien had based it allegorically on the second world war.

Becca: 00:31:08

And they said, no, I was actually writing it long before, and if it's

Becca: 00:31:12

been affected by any war, it was World War One, which he fought in.

Becca: 00:31:16

And then since it's been applied to understanding the Cold War.

Becca: 00:31:21

It's been applied to understanding.

Becca: 00:31:23

When the films came out, the second book is called the Two Towers and the

Becca: 00:31:27

second film came out in 2002 after nine eleven and the Twin Towers falling.

Becca: 00:31:32

And at that time, when people who didn't know the books were like, what is this?

Becca: 00:31:37

What is this parallel that's happening here?

Becca: 00:31:39

And I think we can feel it again these days It's so applicable to any period

Becca: 00:31:46

in history where we feel too small to take on the heaviness, the darkness,

Becca: 00:31:53

the challenges that are before us.

Becca: 00:31:56

For me, the greatest applicability is the great challenge of climate change.

Becca: 00:32:01

And how we as human beings, talk about having to face the shadow, have ravaged

Becca: 00:32:08

this earth and in the Lord of the Rings, what really distinguishes Sauron's

Becca: 00:32:15

evil is his treatment of the Earth.

Becca: 00:32:20

And there's this beautifully horrendous description when Frodo and Sam, the

Becca: 00:32:26

little Hobbits are approaching Mordor for the first time, guided by Gollum

Becca: 00:32:32

and they see the tortured earth where nothing will ever grow again.

Becca: 00:32:39

And this is evil's treatment of the earth itself.

Becca: 00:32:43

And we see a much smaller ravaging taking place with the wizard Saruman on

Becca: 00:32:48

the white wizard, Saruman, and Isengard where he takes what was once a fertile

Becca: 00:32:53

land and rips down the trees, then turns it into a kind of Middle Earth

Becca: 00:32:59

version of the Industrial Revolution.

Becca: 00:33:02

And so when I think that it's most applicable for our time

Becca: 00:33:08

there and what we're each being asked to do is, what is our task?

Becca: 00:33:14

What is our small task or the ring that we're asked to carry in the face

Becca: 00:33:18

of this insurmountable challenge.

Becca: 00:33:22

And the other great wisdom that I think is so important-- and it comes back to

Becca: 00:33:25

what we were talking about before in terms of the hero's journey, because so many

Becca: 00:33:29

tellings of the hero's journey follow one hero through this cyclical journey.

Becca: 00:33:37

But what stands out about the Lord of the rings is that it's a

Becca: 00:33:41

heroes, plural journey that it's a Fellowship, always acting together,

Becca: 00:33:48

always supporting each other.

Becca: 00:33:50

And.

Becca: 00:33:51

When we start off, it's not just Frodo by himself.

Becca: 00:33:55

He is accompanied by Sam and Merry and Pippin.

Becca: 00:33:58

They get help from Tom Bombadil.

Becca: 00:34:00

Then they encounter Strider, Aragorn, the fellowship is growing

Becca: 00:34:05

finally at crescendos with the nine members of the fellowship.

Becca: 00:34:08

But even when the fellowship breaks, no one is ever acting alone.

Becca: 00:34:13

Frodo and Sam go off together and support each other.

Becca: 00:34:16

The achievement of the ring quest wouldn't be possible without the two

Becca: 00:34:20

of them and Gollum acting in concert.

Becca: 00:34:24

We see with the three hunters-- Aragorn Legolas and Gimli-- they're always

Becca: 00:34:29

working together, even Gandalf who you would think of as working on his own.

Becca: 00:34:35

Whenever we see him, he's helping others.

Becca: 00:34:40

He is organizing much larger factions of people in this great struggle.

Becca: 00:34:47

Even when he rides off to Minas Tirith, he is accompanied by Pippin.

Becca: 00:34:51

That's one of the things that we see throughout the story ever acts alone.

Becca: 00:34:56

And I think that's such an important message for our time.

Becca: 00:35:00

The age of heroes is over.

Becca: 00:35:02

The age of individual leaders and saviors is over.

Becca: 00:35:06

And it is now a time of I'm drawing on Jung in part for this-- It is a

Becca: 00:35:11

time of taking on our own spiritual and ecological burden to be able to

Becca: 00:35:22

face the challenges of this time.

Becca: 00:35:24

We can't do it alone.

Becca: 00:35:25

Not only can we not do it at.

Becca: 00:35:27

We are not meant to do it alone.

Becca: 00:35:31

This is part of what I think what we're needing to work out is how to relate

Becca: 00:35:36

to each other and how to move through these times at the smallest scales,

Becca: 00:35:41

with, within our families, within our relationships, within our institutions,

Becca: 00:35:45

but then at the larger scales too.

Becca: 00:35:47

The only way we're actually going to do anything about the ecological

Becca: 00:35:52

crisis and climate change really is that nations figure out that these

Becca: 00:35:59

borders are arbitrary and that, of course it's a huge problem in itself,

Becca: 00:36:06

but finally for humanity to wake up and realize we are on a globe and it

Becca: 00:36:10

is round and that the only way through this is actually working together.

Becca: 00:36:15

And I know I sound totally idealistic when I say that, but

Becca: 00:36:19

that's the hard lesson that's here.

Becca: 00:36:21

Otherwise we face demise really.

Becca: 00:36:25

And that might be what our task really is as being hospice

Becca: 00:36:28

workers through this time as well.

Becca: 00:36:30

So those are some of my thoughts on the applicability of the Lord

Becca: 00:36:35

of the Rings to our current era.

Boston: 00:36:37

You've conjured so many thoughts and memories for me.

Boston: 00:36:41

One thing, when you talked about having one foot in each world, I, I went

Boston: 00:36:46

through a period like that, myself reading, not just Lord of the Rings,

Boston: 00:36:50

but I was also reading a lot of more contemporary fantasy, the Xanth novels.

Boston: 00:36:55

And I remember flying from New York to San Antonio, Texas.

Boston: 00:37:01

And as I looked down at the world, I saw the difference between natural

Boston: 00:37:08

shapes, the way water flowed and the way forest flowed, and then the manmade

Boston: 00:37:13

geometry with its circles and squares.

Boston: 00:37:17

And it looked like a, it looked like a computer motherboard was being built.

Boston: 00:37:23

In the middle of an organic landscape.

Boston: 00:37:25

It still looks that way to me.

Boston: 00:37:26

But I remember the first time I saw it, it was creepy and disturbing and it seems

Boston: 00:37:32

like something that has only continued and proliferated . And now looking back, you

Boston: 00:37:37

know, that would have been the mid 1990s.

Boston: 00:37:39

So before our technological world that we're in today,

Boston: 00:37:46

Another thing you made me think of is the personal, the soulful inhabited

Boston: 00:37:53

body and its immediate environments.

Boston: 00:37:56

the place that I live, my house, my apartment, the community of my

Boston: 00:38:00

building, the neighborhood around me and the ecology of this place and the

Boston: 00:38:04

relationships among the people here.

Boston: 00:38:08

And then on this other end of the spectrum, I'm in San Francisco.

Boston: 00:38:14

You're in Nevada City, yesterday I was on Zoom with somebody in Australia

Boston: 00:38:19

and somebody else in South Africa.

Boston: 00:38:22

And so these two things are happening simultaneously.

Boston: 00:38:25

There's this global connectivity that allows us to have an impact far

Boston: 00:38:31

outside our immediate environment, but the importance of tending to both.

Boston: 00:38:38

Not only are we called upon, we have the tools to participate locally and globally

Boston: 00:38:44

in a, in a way that we never have before.

Becca: 00:38:47

Yeah.

Boston: 00:38:48

I like your idealism.

Boston: 00:38:50

I am an idealist, but I haven't, but my optimism has failed in recent times.

Boston: 00:38:57

So hearing what's possible through your eyes.

Boston: 00:39:01

It speaks to my soul and I, I hope you'll keep sharing it beyond this podcast

Boston: 00:39:07

because I think we need that image.

Becca: 00:39:11

With the idealism and identifying it as that.

Becca: 00:39:15

And when I say that it will take coming together and that kind of fellowship

Becca: 00:39:21

and relationality to overcome these challenges, I say that like you with the

Becca: 00:39:26

optimism failing, recognizing that is probably impossible given how humanity is

Becca: 00:39:34

treating itself, how we're treating each other, how we took on the challenge of

Becca: 00:39:41

this pandemic and it's come through, not as coming together in a global sense, even

Becca: 00:39:46

though we're all going through the same thing, but also in very different ways.

Becca: 00:39:53

I think the pandemic has shown the intense inequality that was already

Becca: 00:39:58

apparent, but it's made it even clearer.

Becca: 00:40:00

And when we say we're all in the same boat, it isn't true at all.

Becca: 00:40:05

Some people have really cushy life rafts and other people have a scrap

Becca: 00:40:09

of wood, but we're all in the same.

Becca: 00:40:12

Maybe sea with that and Same storm.

Becca: 00:40:16

It's a good metaphor.

Becca: 00:40:17

So it's shown that inequality it's shown the schisms and the divisions even more.

Becca: 00:40:24

And so I speak my idealism so that we can have a sense of what we could move

Becca: 00:40:32

towards while simultaneously recognizing that having the ideal be what is it that

Becca: 00:40:40

the perfect, the enemy of the good, can be very problematic, but an ideal or a vision

Becca: 00:40:46

can at least help us move towards that.

Becca: 00:40:49

Even if we never get there.

Becca: 00:40:51

We can still have that informing our values and our decision.

Boston: 00:40:56

That just strikes me as a healthy way to live living toward a better world.

Boston: 00:41:01

At least that gives us not just hope, but purpose and a sense of possibility.

Boston: 00:41:08

None of us.

Boston: 00:41:08

W what's the Gandalf quote or I wish I hadn't lived to see.

Boston: 00:41:13

I wish I hadn't lived to see such times.

Becca: 00:41:15

Yeah, Frodo says I wish it may not have happened in my time.

Becca: 00:41:20

And Gandalf says, so do all who come to see such times.

Becca: 00:41:24

But that is not for them to decide.

Becca: 00:41:26

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that has given to us.

Becca: 00:41:29

That's been my mantra since I was 13 years old, that none of us would

Becca: 00:41:37

really choose these times, but.

Becca: 00:41:41

What are we tasked to take on in this time?

Becca: 00:41:43

And that is our free choice.

Becca: 00:41:45

It's really important to remember that is our free agency to

Becca: 00:41:50

choose how we spend this time.

Boston: 00:41:53

I'm also reminded of, and I, this is a, this can be

Boston: 00:41:58

a dangerous way of thinking.

Boston: 00:42:01

It is still in my mind that things can turn dark very quickly and they did.

Boston: 00:42:07

It just seemed like a shadow dropped over the Earth in 2016 and only got darker.

Boston: 00:42:16

And sometimes the light comes just as quickly.

Boston: 00:42:19

Things can seem to magically shift people's moods shift the same way.

Boston: 00:42:25

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I don't know why I feel great.

Boston: 00:42:29

And there it is.

Boston: 00:42:31

And then that can happen at a bigger level.

Boston: 00:42:33

New technologies can emerge.

Boston: 00:42:35

The magic bullet theory it's not a good way to approach global problems, but, but

Boston: 00:42:42

there are forces working in our favor.

Boston: 00:42:45

At least I would like to believe that.

Becca: 00:42:46

There are people who are taking on these challenges and I always feel

Becca: 00:42:53

so inspired by are you familiar with the Bioneers conference with those

Becca: 00:42:59

kinds of organizations and when you can bring together people who are actually

Becca: 00:43:04

working on solutions creatively, imaginatively, with inspiration.

Becca: 00:43:11

It brings new life into very difficult spaces.

Becca: 00:43:16

It's not just laying down and letting the world walk over you.

Becca: 00:43:22

And that being able to, I think this comes back to, what is your ring to carry?

Becca: 00:43:29

What is your task to take on in this time?

Becca: 00:43:32

And that it's enough to take on your own task.

Becca: 00:43:39

You don't have to take on all of it, but by taking on something that

Becca: 00:43:43

you really love, that you're really passionate about, that you think

Becca: 00:43:47

will help meet these challenges.

Becca: 00:43:52

I think that ripples out and does inspire others to do the same thing.

Becca: 00:43:57

And then there's a whole orchestration around taking this on.

Becca: 00:44:02

Yeah.

Boston: 00:44:04

To weave some of these threads together, how do you think

Boston: 00:44:07

astrology can support us in this time?

Becca: 00:44:13

It can support us in a number of ways.

One: 00:44:15

it can give a context for what's unfolding in terms of understanding.

One: 00:44:21

What are the archetypal dynamics that are at play?

One: 00:44:23

When in history have we seen this before?

One: 00:44:26

And when is it going to end?

One: 00:44:28

So for example, 2020 there was a triple conjunction of three

One: 00:44:35

planets, Jupiter, Saturn, and Pluto.

One: 00:44:37

And we can particularly focus in on the Saturn-Pluto conjunction

One: 00:44:42

because historically every time Saturn and Pluto have common to major

One: 00:44:46

alignment, it has correlated with really intense, significant crises

One: 00:44:53

and contractions on the world stage.

One: 00:44:56

So just looking at the 20th century or, over the last 120 years, World

One: 00:45:02

War One started under a Saturn-Pluto alignment World War II started under

One: 00:45:06

a Saturn-Pluto alignment, the Vietnam War and the Cold War both started

One: 00:45:10

under Saturn-Pluto alignments.

One: 00:45:12

Nine eleven happened under a Saturn-Pluto alignment, and now COVID happened

One: 00:45:16

under a Saturn-Pluto alignment.

One: 00:45:18

The day that the Saturn-Pluto conjunction was exact was literally the day after

One: 00:45:24

the first COVID death was announced.

Boston: 00:45:26

Oh, my gosh.

Becca: 00:45:27

And so at the time, it, and I even remember seeing amongst astrologers

Becca: 00:45:33

that like it wasn't as big as we were anticipating when the exact alignment

Becca: 00:45:37

happened, which is why astrologers should use wider orbs and realize that

Becca: 00:45:42

alignment was coming in beginning of 2018 was intensifying through 2019.

Becca: 00:45:48

We were already feeling the vice grip coming in.

Becca: 00:45:51

2020 hits the exact alignments January 12th, and then Jupiter

Becca: 00:45:56

comes in which magnifies or makes bigger whatever it touches.

Becca: 00:46:00

Those three were in a dance with each other all year.

Becca: 00:46:02

Jupiter, Saturn, pluto, very rare, triple conjunction.

Becca: 00:46:05

The only one we've had previous to this on in the 20th century was.

Becca: 00:46:12

In the 1980s.

Becca: 00:46:13

It was came in 1980-81 and correlated with a lot of the contractions at that

Becca: 00:46:19

time, economically the AIDS epidemic and certain other political conflicts

Becca: 00:46:25

that were happening at that time.

Becca: 00:46:27

Another kind of empowerment of conservatism.

Becca: 00:46:31

So there's certainly parallels between the earliest.

Becca: 00:46:34

And 2020, there were a couple other factors that made 2020 even more

Becca: 00:46:40

intense, even more significant, but what is actually happening right

Becca: 00:46:45

now, Saturn and Pluto then in that conjunction through this year as

Becca: 00:46:51

well, not as tight as in 2020, but extending and ending finally this month.

Becca: 00:46:58

There is I think going to be some feeling of a shift as 2021 ends.

Becca: 00:47:05

Now, Saturn-Pluto isn't the only factor astrologically.

Becca: 00:47:09

There's been a Saturn Uranus square.

Becca: 00:47:11

This is another part of the dynamics that made 2020, especially

Becca: 00:47:15

complex where Saturn- Uranus relates more to sudden collapse--.

Boston: 00:47:21

Zoom picked this exact moment to completely cut out.

Boston: 00:47:25

The app stopped.

Boston: 00:47:27

And I had to disconnect and reconnect.

Boston: 00:47:31

And fortunately Becca was still there and this was particularly significant

Boston: 00:47:36

given what becca was discussing.

Becca: 00:47:41

You still there?

Boston: 00:47:42

That's not disturbing at all.

Becca: 00:47:47

And I'm talking about Saturn-Uranus, which is like the

Becca: 00:47:49

failure of technology which..

Becca: 00:47:51

Yeah.

Becca: 00:47:52

So Uranus relates to innovation, breakthrough, technology, and Saturn

Becca: 00:48:00

tends to problematize what it touches.

Becca: 00:48:02

It ends .It negates.

Becca: 00:48:03

It blocks.

Becca: 00:48:04

And something that we do see with Saturn-Uranus alignments is like the

Becca: 00:48:08

sudden interruption of technology or sudden collapses of structures

Becca: 00:48:14

or infrastructure issues as well.

Becca: 00:48:17

A great example of that was in February, the unexpected freeze that happened.

Becca: 00:48:23

Uranus is the unexpected.

Becca: 00:48:24

Saturn brings cold.

Becca: 00:48:25

It brings winter.

Becca: 00:48:26

The unexpected freeze and Texas where so many people's homes the pipes burst.

Becca: 00:48:32

That's a great, unfortunate example of Saturn Uranus, where it's

Becca: 00:48:36

literal infrastructure breaking due to an unexpected problem.

Becca: 00:48:42

That's all very Saturn-Uranus.

Becca: 00:48:44

Where I was going with that as our recording demonstrated the exact thing I

Becca: 00:48:50

was talking about, is we are going to be in a Saturn-Uranus square into about 2023.

Becca: 00:48:56

So I think we are going to be continuing to struggle with these breaks, these

Becca: 00:49:01

schisms, the problematic side of innovation, the distrust of technology.

Becca: 00:49:08

So many different themes that can come up around that.

Becca: 00:49:10

I'm just looping back to your question around how does

Becca: 00:49:13

astrology help us with this?

Becca: 00:49:15

And I'm speaking on the one hand to the problematic side, where

Becca: 00:49:18

it does give us a context for when things are really difficult.

Becca: 00:49:23

It also gives us a sense of when those things can come to an end,

Becca: 00:49:26

the Saturn-Pluto conjunction that correlated with the onset of the

Becca: 00:49:30

pandemic will be ending this month.

Becca: 00:49:35

Saturn Uranus will end in 2023, but we also have some other kinds of

Becca: 00:49:40

transits coming through next year, 2022.

Becca: 00:49:44

There's going to be a Jupiter Neptune conjunction.

Becca: 00:49:47

Jupiter Neptune is like the richness of the imagination.

Becca: 00:49:50

It's the wealth of mythology and spirituality and religion and celebrating

Becca: 00:49:57

that, and finding a sense of joy in the transcendent, in the sacred.

Becca: 00:50:03

That alignment is going to start to come in January.

Becca: 00:50:05

It's going to be really potent in March, April, May of 2022.

Becca: 00:50:11

It's really going to be here for about 14 months through next year.

Becca: 00:50:17

And the way that I'm thinking about it is just like when you're having a

Becca: 00:50:22

really difficult day or a really hard maybe work week and you come home and

Becca: 00:50:29

you have that hot tub waiting for you.

Becca: 00:50:31

You get in the hot tub with a nice glass of wine, and the

Becca: 00:50:35

stars are sparkling above you.

Becca: 00:50:37

And it eases the aches.

Becca: 00:50:38

It eases the pain.

Becca: 00:50:39

It doesn't fix the problems you're having at work or in your life, or what

Becca: 00:50:43

might be collapsing or falling apart.

Becca: 00:50:45

But it's a soothing balm and is able to provide some healing or at least give you

Becca: 00:50:51

that boost you need to go back out there and face whatever it is you're facing.

Becca: 00:50:56

That I think is what the Jupiter Neptune alignment will be like for us.

Becca: 00:51:00

At least, I'm really hoping so it's not going to fix the problems.

Becca: 00:51:03

I don't think it's going to make the pandemic go away, but I think we are

Becca: 00:51:07

going to get some kind of relief.

Becca: 00:51:09

And then if we look a little further ahead into 2024, there's going to

Becca: 00:51:14

be a Jupiter Uranus conjunction and Jupiter-Uranus does tend to correlate

Becca: 00:51:19

with sudden unexpected breakthroughs, usually in a very positive sense,

Becca: 00:51:24

where there is the sense of opening, a new possibility and rebirth on and a

Becca: 00:51:30

kind of heralding of positive change.

Becca: 00:51:34

And as you were saying before, those mornings where you just wake

Becca: 00:51:37

up and things suddenly are better.

Becca: 00:51:39

looking ahead at 2024 and knowing there's going to be this Jupiter-Uranus

Becca: 00:51:43

conjunction, I do think it holds that potential for that kind of breakthrough.

Becca: 00:51:47

Going forward a little further, there are other challenging alignments that will

Becca: 00:51:51

be coming forward, especially 2025-26, there's a Saturn-Neptune conjunction I

Becca: 00:51:57

think my bring some grief--- melancholy.

Becca: 00:52:01

There can be tremendous sadness that comes forward with Saturn Neptune.

Becca: 00:52:05

But this is the human experience.

Becca: 00:52:07

This is the earthly experience.

Becca: 00:52:08

It's never over.

Becca: 00:52:10

The story keeps changing and continuing, but in terms of getting some kind of

Becca: 00:52:15

relief from what we've been through in these last several years, I am looking

Becca: 00:52:19

towards 2022 with that Jupiter Neptune conjunction, and especially curious about

Becca: 00:52:24

the Jupiter-Uranus alignment in 2024.

Becca: 00:52:28

The astrologer, Matthew Stelzner, calls Jupiter-Uranus the thank the

Becca: 00:52:32

Lord transit because that's often what people say when it comes around.

Becca: 00:52:38

Oh, thank goodness.

Becca: 00:52:39

We've come through this dark night.

Boston: 00:52:42

My understanding is that Uranus is associated very often with Prometheus.

Boston: 00:52:47

And so this is from the heavens to man.

Boston: 00:52:50

So new inventions, new ideas.

Boston: 00:52:53

On the flip side, Uranus is named for Ouranos, the sky god.

Boston: 00:52:57

So you have the revolution.

Boston: 00:52:58

The Titans over the sky god.

Boston: 00:53:01

Both of these are breakthroughs in civilization and possibility.

Becca: 00:53:07

Exactly.

Becca: 00:53:07

And while we can see a really positive side to that in terms of breakthrough and

Becca: 00:53:14

change and awakening, not just in terms of technology or science or innovation,

Becca: 00:53:20

but artistically and creatively, as well.

Becca: 00:53:23

Uranus is that spark of insight that can be applied to any area, to

Becca: 00:53:28

writing, to film, to artistic forms.

Becca: 00:53:32

And it can correlate with a kind of a cultural Renaissance in some ways

Becca: 00:53:41

where that energy sparks so many new movements that will then carry

Becca: 00:53:46

forward in a variety of forms that reflect the other transits going on.

Becca: 00:53:50

Something that Rick Tarnas writes.

Becca: 00:53:52

my father writes in his book, Cosmos and Psyche about Jupiter-Uranus is that during

Becca: 00:53:57

those periods, hidden births happen.

Becca: 00:54:01

And so something can be started.

Becca: 00:54:04

A significant meeting between two individuals or the beginning of a

Becca: 00:54:10

project that will become something very significant, but we don't

Becca: 00:54:16

know it in the moment when the Jupiter-Uranus alignment is happening.

Becca: 00:54:22

In terms of significant meetings, the one that's at the top of my mind

Becca: 00:54:26

right now is like Emerson met Thoreau under a Jupiter-Uranus alignment.

Becca: 00:54:30

And then we see everything that came forward.

Becca: 00:54:31

But at the time it's just two individuals meeting and that is

Becca: 00:54:36

the kind of hidden birth quality that Jupiter your on can have.

Becca: 00:54:40

So whenever I see clients, for example, having a Jupiter-Uranus transit coming, I

Becca: 00:54:45

will encourage them to take on the project or the endeavor that they've maybe been

Becca: 00:54:53

holding off doing until the time is right.

Becca: 00:54:56

Jupiter-Uranus alignments, especially the collective ones, that's the moment

Becca: 00:55:01

to start that project or, publish that book or that piece, because it's going

Becca: 00:55:06

to carry the energy of Jupiter-Uranus.

Becca: 00:55:09

And we may not even know yet what it will become, but it's been seeded then.

Becca: 00:55:15

And that's, what's really important.

Becca: 00:55:17

So anyone listening, if you're planning something for the future, just remember

Becca: 00:55:21

2024 might be a really good time to give it that burst of creative energy.

Boston: 00:55:27

You said you wanted to talk about imagination and the imaginal.

Boston: 00:55:32

What's what's present for you in imagination right now.

Becca: 00:55:36

I feel like imagination in our culture is largely misunderstood, but

Becca: 00:55:43

it stands behind so many of these themes we've been discussing, around story,

Becca: 00:55:48

around myth, around astrology, because imagination really is what we see

Becca: 00:55:55

the world through, and typically in a modern mindset when we say, oh, that's

Becca: 00:56:03

imaginary, we mean it's just been made up.

Becca: 00:56:07

It's not real.

Becca: 00:56:08

It's just been pulled from somewhere.

Becca: 00:56:11

There's no basis in reality.

Becca: 00:56:14

And in my studies of Tolkien and Carl Jung and others such as James Hillman,

Becca: 00:56:21

Henri Corban, and Sufi mysticism, and so forth, there's so much support for the

Becca: 00:56:27

idea that imagination-- the Romantics, as well-- that imagination is this

Becca: 00:56:33

extraordinary faculty of creativity that isn't just simply making something up.

Becca: 00:56:40

It's actually our means of access or maybe a better way of putting

Becca: 00:56:45

this is a co-creation with-- with the divine imagination.

Becca: 00:56:51

With the archetypal principles.

Becca: 00:56:53

You can look at it through a variety of lenses, but I really see the imagination

Becca: 00:56:59

as this interconnecting faculty that gives us the ability to draw in the archetypal

Becca: 00:57:06

principles into creative manifestation.

Becca: 00:57:09

The imagination is less something that's fully in our agency.

Becca: 00:57:14

And is more of an experience that we have that's given to us, but that we

Becca: 00:57:19

also participate in and co-create with, if we look at humans experiences that

Becca: 00:57:26

he recorded in The Red Book, they are a record of active imagination, fantasies

Becca: 00:57:32

that were very clearly not being made up.

Becca: 00:57:35

They were coming through him, but he's also engaging with them.

Becca: 00:57:40

And based on that, we can also surmise looking at Tolkien's writing process of

Becca: 00:57:47

The Lord of the Rings he kept describing and letters that he felt like he was

Becca: 00:57:50

discovering it rather than inventing it.

Becca: 00:57:55

And the more he wrote, the more, it just simply came through him.

Becca: 00:57:58

And a lot of authors and artists will describe the creative process this way,

Becca: 00:58:02

that it isn't really them doing it.

Becca: 00:58:06

They have the agency in terms of the art and the shaping of it, the craft.

Becca: 00:58:11

But that one is actually tapping into a visionary experience or an imaginal

Becca: 00:58:19

immersion in what some would even consider it to be more of a place or

Becca: 00:58:24

realm-- the imaginal realm-- or what Corban calls the Mundus Imaginalis,

Becca: 00:58:29

the world of the imagination.

Becca: 00:58:32

And then coming back to what I was describing before of my very immersive

Becca: 00:58:37

experience of Middle Earth as a child, I think in some ways that

Becca: 00:58:42

was entering into the imaginal realm or the Mundus imaginalis through

Becca: 00:58:47

the lens that Tolkien crafted.

Becca: 00:58:50

So he was the artist who shaped the capacity to enter into that space.

Becca: 00:58:54

But what that space is, is given life by something beyond the human being, whether

Becca: 00:58:59

we call that God or the Divine, or simply the sacred cosmos itself coming through.

Becca: 00:59:07

But we have this capacity to enter into this imaginal space, this kind of in

Becca: 00:59:12

between realm between the physical realm and the more abstract realm of thought.

Becca: 00:59:17

The imaginal exists in between them and forming both.

Becca: 00:59:22

And maybe I'll just conclude this thought with someone who's very much

Becca: 00:59:27

informed my own thinking on imagination, drawing on the Romantics, Samuel Taylor

Becca: 00:59:32

Coleridge, who delineated two types of imagination, what he called the primary

Becca: 00:59:39

imagination and the secondary imagination.

Becca: 00:59:42

And his description of the primary imagination is--

Becca: 00:59:47

He says, 'The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of

Becca: 00:59:54

all human perception and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal

Becca: 01:00:00

act of creation, the Infinite I Am."

Becca: 01:00:03

That's from the Biographica Literaria.

Becca: 01:00:05

What he's saying there is that the primary imagination is the power that informs

Becca: 01:00:12

all our human perceptions of the world.

Becca: 01:00:16

It's the latter part where he says it's the repetition in the finite mind.

Becca: 01:00:22

So in the human mortal mind of the eternal act of creation and

Becca: 01:00:28

the infinite I Am, the Infinite I Am is God from this perspective.

Becca: 01:00:33

It's divine creativity, but the primary imagination is that

Becca: 01:00:37

eternal act of creation repeating in our own limited mind, and this

Becca: 01:00:44

is what we call the imagination.

Becca: 01:00:47

This is our perception of the world of divine creativity coming through us.

Becca: 01:00:52

And then the secondary imagination that he describes.

Becca: 01:00:55

That's the part of us that takes that primary vision, and is

Becca: 01:00:59

actually able to turn it into art.

Becca: 01:01:02

It recreates it recombines to bring forward the art, the stories,

Becca: 01:01:07

the film, the paintings that human artists and authors create.

Becca: 01:01:13

And so it's a working together of the secondary and the primary imagination.

Becca: 01:01:18

But from this perspective, ultimately all imaginative expression or creative

Becca: 01:01:23

expression is a gift from the divine.

Becca: 01:01:27

And that brings me to, to Tolkien again, who says he's talking

Becca: 01:01:32

about fantasy or the capacity to create through the imagination.

Becca: 01:01:37

He says, "fantasy is and remains a human right.

Becca: 01:01:40

For we are made.

Becca: 01:01:42

Not only are we made, but we're made in the image and likeness of a maker.

Becca: 01:01:46

Because we, from this perspective are made in the image of God and God is a creator.

Becca: 01:01:53

Therefore it is our human right to be creators as well."

Becca: 01:01:56

So those are some of my thoughts on the imagination and our relationship

Becca: 01:02:00

to it, and how that can inform many of these different themes

Becca: 01:02:03

that we've been talking about here.

Boston: 01:02:06

It's such a stunning model of imagination and creativity,

Boston: 01:02:10

and this eternal question of where do ideas come from?

Boston: 01:02:14

Have you read Neil Gaiman's work at all?

Becca: 01:02:17

I have read some of it.

Becca: 01:02:18

I haven't read everything that he's written, but I do actually plan

Becca: 01:02:24

or intend to do that at some point in my life because everything I've

Becca: 01:02:28

read of his, I absolutely love.

Boston: 01:02:30

I've been listening to his audio book version of The Sandman

Boston: 01:02:34

graphic novels or comic book series and Dream the character and The Dreaming.

Boston: 01:02:42

The space in for the primary imagination.

Boston: 01:02:46

This imaginal realm or something in between.

Boston: 01:02:50

It's the mediator between.

Boston: 01:02:52

Wherever there's nothing and then where humans encounter an infinite number

Boston: 01:02:58

of possibilities and interact with each other in this shared imaginal.

Boston: 01:03:04

It's funny.

Boston: 01:03:05

I've read most of his work.

Boston: 01:03:07

And I decided, oh, this man is channeling.

Boston: 01:03:10

Something is working through him.

Boston: 01:03:11

And then I took a Masterclass with him, and he talks about his process

Boston: 01:03:15

of combining one thing with another.

Boston: 01:03:17

And it was much more mechanical, He described it as, "I made it up."

Boston: 01:03:22

And I thought, but did you, and.

Boston: 01:03:27

And I don't relate to that.

Boston: 01:03:29

When I write a scene, when I write fiction very much is going inside.

Boston: 01:03:35

What's the truth?

Boston: 01:03:36

What's true about this?

Boston: 01:03:39

And it does feel like I am tapping into a place.

Boston: 01:03:42

It feels like I'm looking through a window.

Boston: 01:03:44

If I can just get it clear enough to write down what I see.

Becca: 01:03:49

That's actually a metaphor that Tolkien uses in his essay on fairy

Becca: 01:03:54

stories, where he talks about clearing the window, getting a clear view.

Becca: 01:03:58

And that's part of what fairy stories offer us, is that

Becca: 01:04:01

they clear the window for us.

Becca: 01:04:02

Some authors are very aware of that.

Becca: 01:04:06

Process as something coming through them like Ursula K.

Becca: 01:04:08

Le Guin really had a strong sense that the stories were moving

Becca: 01:04:13

through her, were choosing her.

Becca: 01:04:15

I think some of it is where the emphasis is put, and also I think

Becca: 01:04:19

it's really important to listen to an author's description of, where

Becca: 01:04:24

their ideas come from, how they do it.

Becca: 01:04:25

Neil Gaiman's more maybe constructed approach is-- that's

Becca: 01:04:30

also just important to recognize.

Becca: 01:04:32

I don't want to say that what I'm describing in terms of the

Becca: 01:04:35

imaginal is like the only way stories come through by any means.

Becca: 01:04:39

Like Tolkien described his theory as sub creation.

Becca: 01:04:44

It comes in two parts.

Becca: 01:04:45

There's the imagination, which is what I think we've been talking about here in

Becca: 01:04:51

terms of Coleridge's primary imagination.

Becca: 01:04:53

It's the images that, that one sees or what you hear.

Becca: 01:04:58

And then the second part, which is just as important as the art.

Becca: 01:05:02

So it's imagination plus art equals sub creation.

Becca: 01:05:06

He calls it subcreation because this is as creation under God and

Becca: 01:05:10

that we need to hone both crafts.

Becca: 01:05:14

My emphasis on the imagination, is in part because I want to redeem what imagination

Becca: 01:05:22

is in our culture and recognize this agency beyond us, but I don't want to

Becca: 01:05:27

lose sight of the art and how important it is to put those different elements

Becca: 01:05:31

together and to be conscious of how you're holding different pieces of a

Becca: 01:05:35

story or an artwork when crafting in that way that we need both sides of it.

Becca: 01:05:40

It makes me think actually of the word genius that, you know now

Becca: 01:05:46

will describe a person as a genius.

Becca: 01:05:48

Oh, he's a genius at scientific or technological development, or he's

Becca: 01:05:52

a genius with words or with music, whereas before genius actually

Becca: 01:05:56

referred to the spirit that seized you.

Becca: 01:06:00

The spirit that moved through you.

Becca: 01:06:02

And that really speaks to just a difference in worldview.

Becca: 01:06:05

In a modern worldview, we don't hold space for such spirits.

Becca: 01:06:09

And so we actually attribute it to the person and then we're like, oh, he used

Becca: 01:06:13

to be a genius, but he isn't anymore.

Becca: 01:06:15

What happened there?

Becca: 01:06:16

Maybe it's not down to the person.

Becca: 01:06:18

Maybe it's down to the moment and we can look at their transits and their chart

Becca: 01:06:22

and what's coming through them at a particular time where they do get seized.

Becca: 01:06:26

And maybe that perspective can also offer some relief for the person who's

Becca: 01:06:31

stuck with writer's block or creative anxiety because it isn't the moment.

Becca: 01:06:37

You just keep plugging away at it.

Becca: 01:06:38

And you wait for the genius to seize you.

Becca: 01:06:41

It's almost like cultivating a relationship rather than putting

Becca: 01:06:45

pressure on yourself, which can be a different approach to creativity.

Boston: 01:06:49

For creatives, that's a strong argument for showing up at your

Boston: 01:06:54

page every day, showing up at your craft every day so the genius has an

Boston: 01:06:59

opportunity to seize you in motion.

Boston: 01:07:03

There's nothing worse than getting seized by the genius while you're

Boston: 01:07:05

driving 80 miles an hour on the freeway.

Becca: 01:07:07

Absolutely.

Becca: 01:07:08

yeah.

Becca: 01:07:08

You need to have that voice recorder, that little notebook in

Becca: 01:07:12

your pocket to be able to catch it.

Becca: 01:07:14

And whenever it is coming through.

Boston: 01:07:16

Do you have closing thoughts that you want to make

Boston: 01:07:18

sure you share before we go?

Becca: 01:07:21

Well really, I would just love to thank you for holding this space

Becca: 01:07:25

and this beautiful podcasts that you're creating and bringing forward.

Becca: 01:07:30

It's an honor to get to be a part of it.

Becca: 01:07:32

And I really just enjoyed the dialogue that we've had.

Becca: 01:07:37

I feel like we've gotten to touch on some really rich and relevant subjects.

Becca: 01:07:42

So thank you.

Becca: 01:07:43

Thank you for creating that space.

Boston: 01:07:45

The honor is mine.

Boston: 01:07:47

Thank you for being here and for people who want to know more about you and more

Boston: 01:07:52

about your work how could they find you?

Becca: 01:07:55

I have a website.

Becca: 01:07:56

It's just simply my name, beccatarnas.com and that website

Becca: 01:08:01

houses a lot of different things.

Becca: 01:08:02

It has a lot of podcasts and videos and writings from over the years.

Becca: 01:08:07

It also has a list of my upcoming events.

Becca: 01:08:10

I'm always updating that as something new comes into the docket.

Becca: 01:08:14

I have a few different astrology events, talks, conferences coming up next year.

Becca: 01:08:20

So that's all available there.

Becca: 01:08:22

If anyone's wanting to connect in with that.

Becca: 01:08:25

And I am making a bit of a transition in terms of my work right now.

Becca: 01:08:31

I've been working as an astrological counselor for

Becca: 01:08:34

quite a few years at this point.

Becca: 01:08:36

And I'm starting to pivot and focus more on writing and teaching.

Becca: 01:08:41

I'm taking a step away from that, but that's also going to

Becca: 01:08:44

give me space to bring forward different kinds of offerings.

Boston: 01:08:49

I cannot wait to see what offerings you bring forward.

Boston: 01:08:53

Thank you

Becca: 01:08:54

Thank you.

Boston: 01:08:54

Your, care with this conversation.

Boston: 01:08:57

And thank you for all the work you're doing in the world.

Boston: 01:08:59

This has been a pleasure.

Becca: 01:09:01

Oh, thank you so much as well.

Becca: 01:09:03

I'm absolutely delighted to have been in this conversation with you.

Becca: 01:09:12

That's it for today's episode.

Becca: 01:09:14

If you're enjoying Mythic, please share it with a friend or on social media.

Becca: 01:09:19

You can find show notes and other information for myth

Becca: 01:09:21

lovers at mythicpodcast.com.

Becca: 01:09:25

That's also where you can make a one-time contribution to support production of the

Becca: 01:09:28

podcast if you'd like, and you can always drop me a line on Twitter at Boston Blake.