“To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now.” Samuel Beckett
The panicky uncertainty of this time of celestial transition was in place before recent US election results with many/most stumbling through a fog of unknowing with rising levels of anxiety. How to cope when it is not clear what the future holds is often more difficult that facing up to reality-based hardship.
“Where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” Samuel Beckett.
Irish playwright Beckett’s tragi-comic, bleak view of life has a resonance for this time.
“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett
As does Austrian psychologist/philosopher Viktor Frankl’s search for meaning after the Holocaust.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Viktor Frankl
“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.” Viktor Frankl.
It was always said that those who survived the concentration camps best were the ones with a strong belief system. The content did not matter – marxist, religious or whatever. A belief in a meaning beyond themselves gave them an inner resilience that others lacked.
Therapists working with trauma survivors echo Frankl’s thinking and say one key response to ‘the shattered self’ of a personality fragmented by destructive life experiences is a determined search for meaning.
Astrology does not necessarily point to a meaning in terms of a belief system, since it has no moral content or political or philosophical bias. But what it does offer is a context of sorts, some reassurance that life is not just random chaos.
Both nihilist/minimalist Beckett and Frankl have relatively similar charts. Both are Sun Aries with Moon in Sagittarius. Both have a prominent Uranus opposition Neptune. And both have Jupiter in the 8th.
Beckett, 13 April 1906 8.14pm Dublin, Ireland, had a hard working 6th house Aries Sun trine his Moon and sextile an influential, deep-thinking Pluto in his 8th. His inspired Neptune in his 9th house of meaning opposition Uranus formed a Half Grand Sextile linking Saturn in regretful Pisces and a seductively charming Venus in Taurus on his Descendant. Neptune opposition Uranus also squared closely onto his Mercury in Aries. He had another two Half Grand Sextiles from the North/South Node opposition to Sun and Pluto; and Moon opposition Pluto to IC and Sun. Multi-talented and complex.
He fought for the French Resistance during WW11 and appeared to have conducted a parallel affair alongside a long marriage.
Frankl, 26 March 1905 5.46pm Vienna, Austria, practised as a neurologist/psychologist before being sent in 1942 to a concentration camp, where his father died of starvation and pneumonia. In 1944, his mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers and his wife died of typhus. He spent three years in four concentration camps. After the war he worked with patients until his retirement in 1970.
His Neptune in Cancer on his Midheaven, indicated a healing career and it opposed an unsettled Uranus in his domestic/family 4th house square an Aries Sun. He also had a Half Grand Sextile from Moon opposition an opinionated 9th house Pluto linked to Mercury in Aries and Saturn in scientific Aquarius on the cusp of his 6th house of health.
Similar elements, different inclination.
The Uranus opposition Neptune of the early 20th Century is interesting since it is partly echoed in the 1990s generation with their Uranus Neptune conjunction. It can be inspired, intuitive and insightful, though also escapist, neurotic and prone to fanatical beliefs.
Jupiter in the 8th which both Beckett and Frankl had can also point to a compulsive search for understanding in the realms beyond the real world. As did their Sagittarius Moon.
Both in different ways stressed the need to go on in the face of suffering, uncertainty and the unknown.
To add anther layer of complexity to the paradoxes of coping with uncertainty are two thoughts from psychoanalyst Erich Fromm.
“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.” Erich Fromm
“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” Erich Fromm.
In biology there is a vital balance to be struck between structure and change. For stability, same must follow same to build up a viable species. But when outer circumstances change, there must be a ‘creative’ adjustment to allow the species to survive in the new climate. Too much sameness leads ultimately stagnation and extinction.
Erich Fromm, 23 March 1900 7.30pm Frankfurt um Main, Germany, was another Sun Mercury in Aries with a Sagittarius Moon. His chart is dominated by Uranus opposition Pluto which is essentially revolutionary. Uranus Pluto’s instinct is to upend the status quo and force through change. But too much constant turbulence and turmoil with no stabilizing end-game can be damaging and destructive.
No solid answers but straws to hang onto in troubled times. Who would have thought Aries was such a philosophical sign?
Another thought before I finish. Life goes in pendulum swings – sometimes it has to get much worse before it triggers an equal and opposite reaction. (Not always mind you viz Tibet etc). One small example was the determined push in the 1990s to bury allegations of child abuse which provoked a flurry of research from the therapy world which up till then had largely ignored the subject. Good came out of bad, which might not have happened without the outrage that the denial lobby created. Sometimes the imperfect status quo needs an almighty dunt in the ribs before it wakens up.
A point Americans might wish to consider vis a vis their political system.
“The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.” Samuel Beckett
“You’re on earth. There’s no cure for that”. Samuel Beckett
“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves”. Viktor E. Frankl
“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. Viktor E. Frankl
The post Beckett, Frankl, Fromm – living with uncertainty first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
