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by Isabelle Ghaneh

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

You can discover your own personal mythology through your astrological chart, especially by utilizing your personal placements of the asteroids named for the goddesses. As you understand the archetypal role models the goddesses represent for your life journey, you will gain a deeper knowledge of your own life experiences.

Psyche is one of the most important asteroids in your chart. Psyche's asteroid number is 16, and she was discovered on March 17, 1852, when the Sun was in Pisces. Pisces is the sign of unconscious thoughts and dreams, and is ruled by Neptune, the planet of illusion, mist, and vapor. Pisces and Neptune can give us great creativity and artistic ability, but also incline us to want to escape from reality, into a pleasant dream world, where nothing is real, unless we want it to be.

Psyche is the Greek word for soul, and Psyche is the place in your chart that can detail for you where you can find your entrance into your self. Psyche also represents psychology and is involved with the discipline of the study of the mind. Psyche encompasses the soul, the mind, and the self.

The ancient Greek mythological saga of Psyche has formed the basis of numerous fairy tales and folk stories, including that of Beauty and the Beast, and The Knight and the Loathly Damsel. The elements of Psyche's life are trust, love, passion, betrayal, and jealousy. Beyond that, we can learn from Psyche the uncovering of who we are, why we act as we do, and what love means to us.

Psyche's story is filled with archetypes, as are all mythological tales; fathers who are cruel or neglectful, or overindulgent, foolish, and devoted; jealous women, as in mothers, stepmothers, or sisters, and of course the lover. The lover may be disguised, so the fair maiden cannot see his face or guess his identity. He can be cruel, or he can be kind. He can be a demon or a god. His being and persona changes in each story, and in each version of the story.

The end of the tale is always the same, since the ultimate end of the heroine's story is her final understanding of herself. It is the final acceptance of her totality of being, which includes her mind, body, and spirit. Psyche's story involves the ultimate acknowledgment that the soul can be granted immortality through its' ability to love.

As the myth relates to us, Psyche was a very beautiful girl who was the youngest of three sisters. Psyche was so beautiful that she was treated as a statue or idol to be gazed at. The ancient Greeks began to ignore the temple of Aphrodite, (the Greek counterpart of the Roman goddess Venus), and started to worship Psyche instead of Aphrodite.

Aphrodite became jealous, and asked her son Eros to magically induce Psyche to fall in love with the lowest and most horrible man on earth he could find. Instead Eros himself fell in love with Psyche and had the Zephyr, the west wind, blow her up to a beautiful palace in the mountains. Once there Eros appeared under a cloak of darkness, and told Psyche that she could never look at his face, but that he would visit her nightly, as her husband. During the day Psyche had free rein to live in the palace, and roam the beautiful grounds it was on.

After awhile Psyche missed her older sisters, and asked her mysterious nighttime lover/husband to let them visit her. Eros finally agreed, and Psyche's sisters saw how much material wealth she had. Her sisters became jealous and convinced Psyche that she was really married to a snake, or some other horrible monster. They urged her to look at the man/monster she slept with at night, for her own safety.

Psyche waited until Eros was asleep, and then uncovered him. Once she did, his identity and his beauty was discovered by Psyche, and he woke up and fled from her. She then realized she had been with Eros, the god of love, all the time.

Psyche then went to Aphrodite to ask for a chance to be reunited with her soul mate. Jealous Aphrodite, Eros' mother, set out a series of arduous tasks for Psyche to fulfill before she would agree to allow Eros to see Psyche again. Helped by some of the Olympian gods and goddesses who were sympathetic to her plight, Psyche ultimately passed each test, one of which involved Psyche's descent into the depths of Hades, the underworld, to see Persephone, the queen of the dead. Psyche ultimately won Eros back, married him, was granted immortality, and became a goddess in her own right.

Psyche's story is in essence every woman's story. Psyche's tale begins when she is in early womanhood, and brings her to an uncharted place, where she is not sure of anyone or anything. She is then forced to deal with the world, and surmount many difficult obstacles before she, the embodiment of the soul and mind, is able to merge with her other half, her animus, or her male lover. Once she achieves that goal, she achieves a true integration of her self, becomes a goddess, and achieves immortality.

Astrologically, how does this apply to you? Psyche's journey through the signs of the zodiac varies widely each year, but she is in each sign for between two and ten months. Psyche entered into Virgo on October 5, 2006 and will be there until August 21, 2007. Psyche then moves into Libra for a three-month stay, and will be there until November 18, 2007, when she enters into Scorpio. Psyche will be in the sign of the Scorpion for the rest of the year of 2007.

Psyche can tell us a lot about ourselves and our own journey, but it may take us some time and thought before we become aware of what Psyche symbolically wants to say to us. Delving into our innermost depths can take some time, and reflection.

For example, let's say your own Psyche astrological placement is in Scorpio, conjunct to your Sun or Ascendant, your Rising Sign. Psyche in Scorpio means your understanding of the soul and the mind involves the attributes of the sign of Scorpio, which is a watery, fixed placement. You might have a very deep need to explore your own psychology, and you could be willing to take that exploration to its furthest levels. Psyche conjunct to your Sun or Ascendant means you incorporate your ideas and beliefs about the soul and mind into the very fabric of your being.

To understand Psyche's place in your own chart, it's a good idea to have a grasp of the elements of each sign, and an understanding of the houses and aspects involved. Look below for astrological keywords that will help you understand Psyche's place in your own astrological chart.

Signs: Aries: Cardinal Fire; Taurus: Fixed Earth; Gemini: Mutable Air; Cancer: Cardinal Water; Leo: Fixed Fire; Virgo: Mutable Earth; Libra: Cardinal Air; Scorpio: Fixed Water; Sagittarius: Mutable Fire; Capricorn: Cardinal Earth; Aquarius: Fixed Air; Pisces: Mutable Water.

Houses: First: Your inner sense of self; Second: What you value the most; Third: Your conscious mind; Fourth: Your childhood; Fifth: Your love affairs; Sixth: Your day to day job; Seventh: Your partnerships; Eight: Your attitude to sex, and death; Ninth: Your philosophy of life; Tenth: Your career path, Eleventh: Your hopes and goals; Twelfth: Your unconscious mind.

Aspects: Conjunction: 0-6 degrees apart in the same sign, influence is Positive; Sextile or Trine: 60 to 120 degrees apart, influence is Positive; Opposition: 180 degrees apart, influence is Challenging; Square: 90 degrees apart, influence is Challenging.

Psyche is currently in the sign of Virgo, so the harvest maiden is meeting the goddess of the soul and mind. Virgo is an earthy, mutable sign, and Virgo imparts to Psyche the ability to process information very quickly and analytically, while still exhibiting a deep desire for a physical union with the world around her. Virgo thinks deeply and profoundly, and she has a very down to earth nature, and a true realization of her physical wants and needs.

Psyche in Virgo will bring a tone of questioning to our life stories, and give us the ability to look at our past experiences from many different angles, so we can chart our own paths, and forge ahead in our own life story.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2007. All rights reserved.

"Life happens. Life in the flow."

We learn over time that nobody can solve our problems, but someone can guide you how to solve the problem. You may receive guidance through a teacher, a guru or even strangers that you run into every day. As we practice yoga we learn that the more we know, the less we truly know. Every day I am reminded how much I truly do not know; a very humbling experience.
Yoga teaches me to be present. To just live for being and enjoying life as it is right NOW. Not ten minutes from now, no five days ago, but right now. We are taught to get out of our heads, to release worries and fears of the past or the future and to only live for this very moment. Presence.

"Lead me from untruth to truth, lead me from darkness to light." ~ Buddha

Through yoga we are reminded that we do have a dark side as well as a light side. We are not to repress the dark side, but embrace that side of our Self. We are the yin and the yang. We ultimately cleanse the dark stuff we hold inside. We shine the light on this. We must make friends with dark side. Both positive and negative balance out the whole. Daily practice refines and improves our inner vision to see our Self more clearly. We no longer need to run from fears. Face them and say I'm not running from you anymore. So much is in our heads, so much dark is only in our heads, self-doubt judgment betrayal. Yoga grounds the body so that the light and dark sides of ourselves become clear. So much is truly untrue. But as we diligently practice we are able to find the middle ground and walk our centered balanced line in life. We gain balance in centered lightheartedness. We can have harmony in both light and dark.

"Yoga tells us that the world is actually a projection of our own thoughts and we can modify our inner world to manifest into our outer world. When our inside realm is at peace and in harmony, our outer world shines this projection back at us."
~ David, Jiva Mukti Yoga co-founder

Yoga is observation.

We can observe our world and see what part that is in us is begin reflected back to us. We can then see what part of us needs modification or adjustment in order to have our outer reality reflect back to us the peace, happiness and love we so greatly desire and deserve.

Yoga is already inside of you. Happiness is there. Yoga helps you peel away the onion layers to get to the core. To freedom. The deepest Divine connection to the Ultimate Light Source.

Come out of wanting and back into acceptance and Joy. A yogi or yogini can turn any situation into bliss. That is a yogi. Yoga is being now. Ultimate yoga is meditation. Just BE.

Yoga is love.

"Love is the light that dissolves all walls between souls." 
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

Through a dedicated practice of all forms of yoga we can participate in the world with a sense of freedom, unaffected from trauma, depression, anger, etc. The freedom is balance in both.

Maggie Anderson is a Yoga & Spiritual Teacher, Reiki Master Teacher, Integrated Energy Therapy® Master Instructor, Soul Coach®, Past Life Coach, Magnified Healing® Master Teacher and Angelights Messenger. She is the author of How I Found My True Inner Peace and Divine Embrace. You can contact Maggie at SpiritualCompassConnection.com.

"Follow Your Bliss. It's Your Spiritual Compass."

I was in a car accident in May. For months prior to this event, I had visions of that vehicle hitting me, but I couldn't put all the pieces together until it was too late. I even consulted a psychic, and he told me to get rid of a black cloth. I now think the black cloth he was referring to was my black vehicle. Why wasn't I warned more accurately? Last night I had a dream that I was in an accident with my new car, but the accident happened behind me, like in my rearview mirror. A woman with dark skin died. Is this a warning? I am terrified of driving again, and I must get over this to get on with my life. What are my dreams trying to tell me?

Donna

Dreamchaser:

You created this accident. The universe doesn't hear whether we want something or do not want it - the universe sees what we are focusing on, and that is what we get every time.

If we focus on debt, we get debt. You can see that clearly. If we focus on bad health, we get sick. You see that clearly. If we focus on having a car accident for four months, we will have a car accident.

So congratulations, Donna: you have just proven to yourself that the law of attraction really does work! Fortunately, it will also work if you decide to turn it around by focusing on what you want and thinking positive thoughts.

I can't explain another psychic's readings. I have no idea what he was referring to when he said to get rid of the black cloth.

You should have asked him to be more specific. If you don't understand something in a reading, you should stop the reader and ask for clarification. Then the reader should rephrase things in a way that makes sense to you.

Sometimes we are given messages that don't make sense at the time, but WILL later on. When that's the case, the reader should be able to tell you something like, This may not make sense now, but it will in the future.

You didn't receive more of a warning because you didn't ask the questions the reading brought up for you.

You say that you dreamed of being in an accident in which a woman with dark skin died. Donna, that was a dream, not a warning. Don't get obsessed with this and start to think about it all the time, because you do NOT want to create this in real life.

Dreams like this are your soul's and mind's way of trying to purge this accident stuff from your psyche. You focus on accidents (both the one you had the ones you are afraid of having) WAY too much. At this point, you are obsessed with accidents!

If all a person can focus on is accidents, then yes, I imagine that would make them terrified to drive again. What you need to realize above all is that we create our worlds, for what we focus on is what comes to us. You showed this to be true by creating the car accident.

I know you are saying, But I would NEVER create something bad for myself like that! Well, who would? You did indeed create this - you've proven that to yourself.

Given how powerful your thoughts are, just imagine if you started focusing on what you want! Imagine if every time you found yourself thinking negative thoughts, you found a way to change that and to think happy thoughts. Would you like to know how to do that? The Secret at www.thesecret.tv will show you how.

I wish you success in changing the way you think so you can transform your entire life.

*****

Astrea:

Last spring as I was entering the freeway, a young girl who was talking on her cell phone and had a baby bunny in her lap (!) smashed into me from behind. That was just the beginning of that horrible experience, but we all get through things like that.

After this accident, I was frightened of driving on the freeway. Even now (a year later), I'll do whatever I can to avoid that section of road. Unfortunately, I often find myself right where that accident happened.

Since I have no choice but to drive, and since there isn't any other place to get on the freeway without going back several miles, I brace myself, aim my car, and shoot onto the highway. So far, so good!

There are few experiences that are more traumatizing than a car wreck. When you're hit from behind, it's especially unsettling. Then there are the injuries, repairs, replacements, police investigations and insurance company stuff one has to endure afterwards, so the hurt just keeps on coming for a while.

To overcome my awful fear of driving, I adopted a magical attitude. I use anything and everything to protect myself before I take the wheel and while I'm in the car. I make magical gestures, pray, and use spells and incantations so I'll be safe.

The most effective thing seems to be throwing a net of Blue Stars over my vehicle. I stand at the driver's side door and pray in my own way, while in my mind I see a huge net that encompasses me and the vehicle.

While I know on a logical level that this is only mental imagery, it does give me a more positive attitude about driving. I see myself making a safe journey and having a safe return, and since I believe it will work, it really does!

I don't feel I'm just fooling myself into thinking I'm protected, of course. I believe that this ritual gives me extra awareness of the kind of defensive driving I have to do in order to avoid accidents. So far, it's worked just fine.

It's up to you to figure out what will work for you, just as it was up to you to figure out that the psychic meant not a cloth but your black vehicle.

As far as your feeling that you weren't adequately warned, perhaps at the time you were a bit too scattered for the psychic to see the exact situation that involved you getting rid of something black. I think she did a great job just getting the color, since having a car accident wasn't what you asked her about in the first place.

When I get warnings like that (especially for air signs), they're often highly symbolic and require a lot of interpretation. Since the reading was for you, it was your job to help the psychic figure out what the message was all about.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.