Celestial Templates - Planetary Imprints in Early Childhood

by Erin Sullivan

First the young, like vines, climb up the dull supports of their elders who feel their fingers on them, soft and tender; then the old climb down the lovely supporting bodies of the young into their proper deaths.
— Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet

Not only are children the living embodiment of a moment in time, but they are also the extension from that moment into the future — both collectively for the evolution of the human race, and for individual families to carry on their legacy. Nature has it that we are immortalized through our children by passing along our genetic inheritance as well as our planetary patterns in infinitely myriad ways. The horoscope of an infant is the promise of the future and, like the vines in Durrell’s quote, winds its life symbols around and around, creating both its own future and ours with it.

A birth chart is a transit chart fixed in time and space. The global view of the planetary array is anchored to a time and a place by the horizon and the meridian — the angles of the horoscope. The angles are the moment of incarnation. Incarnation is the beginning of the worldly life, but biological, spiritual, and psychological life begins long before that. (1)

The Ascendant symbolizes both how we are received and how we receive the world, and the Descendant is how we see the world around us through others who are in the same resonance; the IC is the place in which we manifest the immediate ancestral code, that is, our mother and father, their mother and father, and on back through the parental line; and the Midheaven is the genetic and psychological code as it is manifest in the world around us — the family of humanity.

The first seven years are contained by the Saturn transit as it marks each planet with its signature, forming a square to its natal position at around seven-and-a-half years of age. From that age onward, all aspects that Saturn makes to the natal chart are harmonic replications of the first seven-year transit, so we can say that the template of development is set by the experiences in the first seven years of life. (2)

Along with Saturn’s transit, we find the secondary progressed Moon tracking right beside it. The progressed Moon remains in the same orb of relationship to the transit of Saturn well beyond the age of seven, after which the progressed Moon begins, slowly, to depart from that natal configuration due to its slightly faster motion. The Moon and Saturn, two parental images, are tightly bound for the first seven years of life, and thus begins the child’s progress. Within those first seven years, other planetary cycles align with the emergence of the whole person from the little infant seed.

In The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller proposes that an infant is aware of its environment and immediately begins to perform according to the conditions that it finds. She writes:

A newborn baby is completely dependent upon his parents, and since their caring is essential for his existence, he does all he can to avoid losing them.
From the very first day onward, he will muster all his resources to this end, like a small plant that turns toward the sun in order to survive. (3)

Both the Moon and Saturn have to do with instinctual responsibility. A baby does have a responsibility within its family — and to its parents! By and large, parents forget this, if they ever knew it, and feel that they must provide all the guidance, structure, and habits for the child. What they often don’t realize is that the baby is doing all that for them as well. What kind of baby would not assert its needs as they arise? Not a single one. So, there is a mysterious, unconscious collusion between the parental expectations and the infant demands, and vice versa.

Seen in this light, Saturn’s position and the Moon’s aspect to it lay the foundations for the relationship with the mother and father, and thus will be reflected in all adult relationships. We will pick up and follow this thread a little later in the article.

Infant Acts of Heroism and Courage

The seeds of future events are carried within ourselves. They are implicit in us and unfold according to the laws of their own nature.
— Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet

The natal horoscope is the chart of the first heroic act of one’s life, and it remains the pattern for all subsequent heroic acts. To fully appreciate childhood development, we must explore the exact moment of birth in great depth, because it is from that moment in time that all ensuing symbolic direction and actual movements of planets are measured. From the imprint of the birth chart, the individual’s approach to any form of change is marked — and that is the heroic act of which I speak.

Transits begin from the instant of birth. Just as the infant is separated from its mother, and the umbilicus is severed, so do the transits separate from the natal planets, conspiring with the development of the baby into adulthood. The transits are always linked to that natal place, and, from that base knot in the thread of time, a tapestry of life is woven. The various actual movements of planets (transits) and all symbolic movements (progressions, directions, and so forth) are not discrete or separate from that point of origin, and thus a good look at the source of such influences must precede any assumptions made by the planetary transits, progressions, directions, or combinations of planetary motion. As we are whole-system creatures, so too is the solar system.

Each planet has an archetypal essence and agency; the fundamental essence becomes individuated, or personalized, when the planetary symbols make up a horoscope. For example, the Moon’s archetype is the primal instincts and feeling level, and is symbolized by dark, warm, historic, maternal, nurturing, visceral, and survival needs. This is a broad base upon which are built the personal and largely unconscious needs. In a newborn infant, the Moon is purely archetypal and represents the womb, mother, food, and safety. In an adult, it means those things, too, but as archetypes they underlie the more sophisticated adult attributes such as articulated feelings, emotional responses, values, ways of being comfortable, relationships with others, grooved habits, and so on.

The psyche is like an archaeological dig — one civilization overlays another, none lost, but all “down there.” As we overtake our old selves and accommodate our future selves, we bury or suppress earlier, more primitive aspects of our natures. This is normal; this is why we must often go back to a source, a more original experience, when we are faced with an adult dilemma or conflict or crisis. By looking at the first seven years of life (the so-called formative years) and some of their astrological patterns, we can often find the root of a current issue.

It is impossible to make absolute statements about a childhood influence or a condition in the home simply by analyzing the natal chart or a single facet of it, but it is possible to relate the feeling-tone that the chart presents as a whole. Combined with the actual conditions into which one is born — social, cultural, religious, economic, and so on — and the horoscope’s array, we can look at childhood development in the archetypal, astrological sense. From there, not only may we understand our own origins, but we can also work with parents seeking advice about their infants and children.

If the environment that receives a child into the world is hostile, fearful, or filled with tension, then the child automatically begins to develop responses and defenses centered on that. If the home is relaxed and loving and mother is healthy and fundamentally happy, then Eden is prolonged a little, and the stresses of childhood development are worked with rather than augmented.

Lunar Links: Patterns for Life

The Moon’s first imprint is embedded in deeply unconscious, visceral, and instinctual levels of being. It is this level of memory that is virtually impossible to contact in conscious ways through analysis, psychotherapy, or behavioral techniques. Granted, all those methods are helpful in loosening repressed material, and act as catalysts between the conscious mind and the psyche, but the process-work of healing is done through the soul, not the mind. Some trained and gifted body workers assist patients with visceral memories that somatize, or become embedded in the body, as chronic pain, low-grade vitality, and such, but we are not talking about conscious access to lunar memories. No wonder we are such creatures of habit, because that initial imprint of the Moon’s passage in the first month of life is the imprimatur, the official stamp of approval, of all responses to life itself. One can gauge the first month of infant reception/response by using the lunar transit as the baseline; indeed, the evolution of the adult occurs in the same aspect sequence. Because the Moon is the fastest-moving body in transit, and moves around the horoscope one full cycle in the first 27,5 days of life, its transit establishes the instinctive response to all other transits as they make their own full cycles. The Moon, as it transits each planet in the natal chart immediately after birth, making every possible aspect to each one, enlivens each planet in the chart to a sequential order that will not change in the course of a full lifetime.

By “sequential order” I mean a transit pattern that becomes a memory-chain. Individually, each planet in transit applies to and separates from the other planets in the same sequence, the Moon being first to do this round, and next the Sun (involving Mercury and Venus as well). For instance, the Sun transits the entire horoscope once in the first year of life, Mars every two or so years, Jupiter every twelve years, and Saturn every 29 years; each planet will follow the same pattern of formative aspects from its own natal origin point. And, in this way, the Moon’s first transit around the chart creates the template of all our basic primal responses to life.

One could build a novel from that kind of story line. If you list the Moon’s aspects in order of application, transit over, and separation from the natal planets, you list the baby’s elemental gut response to life in an order of patterning that is the same for all planets from their own start points.

For example, if the Moon’s closest applying natal aspect is a square to Jupiter, then there is a seed of excess — a hungry baby, hungry for everything: food, love, life! And if the Moon’s next applying aspect is to Mars, we have a child who is already poised for action and response, and is highly sensitive to noise, light, discord, abandonment, anger, and tension. From that, let’s say that the Moon’s next aspect is a conjunction with Saturn; the child may then react immediately to its desires with feelings of denial, or an inherent difficulty in obtaining its food, love, or life force. This initial response to the set pattern of the natal planets is the exemplar of all subsequent responses to planetary patterns.

Similarly, if the natal Moon’s closest natal aspect is an applying sextile to Pluto, the baby’s response to life is vital, strong, and regenerative; thus, it has a strong survival instinct and will likely be able to overcome life’s more difficult challenges, including survival of emotional, circumstantial, and familial problems. This is because its first psychic impression is one of immortality. If the first planet the Moon crosses over (by conjunction) is Neptune, then the imprint is one that renders the baby, and hence the adult, inclined toward empathy and imagination, emotional longing, and elusive or confused mothering. All of this is read in the natal chart, yes, but is so because of early imprinting.

When we look at the natal chart in this dynamic way — seeing that it is in motion instantly, actively participating in the environment, while similarly engaging and activating the infantile consciousness — we have a better feeling-tone of the infant chart and, hence, of our own adult gut reactions to life itself.

An important factor in lunar development is learning to let things be — the transit of the Moon occurs fast and early, well before any intellectual awareness is developed. Babies do not have any control over their environment. Adults have found ways and means of creating some control over their environments, and may even have quite sophisticated methods of dealing with the environment. However, there is, within the adult, the basic response of the infant, and it is that infantile response that the Moon establishes in the first 27,5 days of life. The lunar passivity and receptivity form the basis of our responses to emotional and feeling situations, which, in turn, formulate our needs and how to get them met. So, learning to “let things be” can either work against one, or it can be a way of accepting life’s “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” while still being armed for battle.

As we know, all our needs are not in our best interests, and primal, hurtful needs are difficult to track and clear out. But it is possible to render negative needs in more positive ways through self-awareness, pattern-breaking, and a deep desire to alter knee-jerk reactions. An example of this kind of dynamic is found in children who have been abused. Their adult tendency is to “need” abusing, that is, to attract or administer abuse out of sheer instinctual habit. This is remediable to some degree, but not totally, because lunar responses are stored in the viscera. Often, analysis coupled with bodywork helps individuals to sort out the confusion of needing love yet not accepting it or, worse, thinking that abuse is love.

The lunar way is to feel one’s way through things, not think one’s way around, out, or into things. It is responsive, reflective, whole-system relating, and, generally, a gentler way of being. Because of this, the Moon is the symbol for our instinctive gut response to life and is often more intelligent than the intellect. Hence, our infantile responses to experiences that elicit feelings, such as quality of life, people, art, beauty, sensuality, and so on, are lunar-based.

The First Year and the Moon-Saturn Relationship

Secondary progressions are calculated as “a day for a year,” so the first 30 days of life are a symbolic microcosm of the first 30 years of life — a period that roughly coincides with the time of the first lunar return (27,5 years) and the first Saturn return (around 29 years). The lunar return signals the imminence of the first Saturn return, the assumption of planetary maturity, and the relinquishment of the child archetype.

As mentioned earlier in this article, the Moon makes a full-circle transit of the horoscope in the first 27,5 days of life, and the movement of all the planets during that time period will establish the secondary progressed movement of the planets for the maturation of infant to child, to adolescent, to young adult.

The first two-and-a-half years — the first 30 degrees of Saturn’s movement away from its natal position — mark the critical bonding period between mother and child. This bonding is extremely important in establishing a sense of comfort, security, and trust, which later leads to a healthy attitude toward life’s challenges as well as intimacy in love and friendship.

The Moon and Saturn in the chart depict the quality of a child’s perception of its environment — what one child deems safe, another would find boring or repressive, while what one child cringes from in fear, another leaps toward with a sense of adventure. The astrologer must avoid projecting his or her own values upon an infant’s chart, but rather find out how that chart will potentially experience its family, environment, and its parents.

The Moon in a child’s chart shows us how emotional love, nurturing, and respect are perceived and needed, while Saturn shows how a child wants to be structured, made safe, and given boundaries. If there is any actual natal aspect between the Moon and Saturn, then the child needs considerable assurance of his or her value, as well as support rather than criticism. Moon-Saturn aspects are found in the charts of individuals whose emotional security is tightly bound up with parental approval. Issues arise early in the child’s life that make his or her awareness of the parents’ need for good behaviour a major factor in approval. Even the softer trines and sextiles produce an awareness of being “good” or

“bad,” and those values become the basis of adult feelings of success or failure. Any planet in aspect with the Moon tells us the degree to which the child will be independent, and how that independence might be won safely. The Moon is the archetypal origin of life in the womb. In this way, the Moon contains intrauterine memories; we know this now for certain. The Moon is a visceral, primal, and nonverbal archetype founded in survival. In the Moon lie our primordial memories of greatest vulnerability and our feelings of safety and containment.

Thus, while the Moon symbolizes the inherent security of a person in an inner, emotional sense, Saturn has more to do with the child’s external messages, from the parents, of its value in the world and feelings of authenticity — that is, whether or not the child is “good enough” or is respected for its innate sense of right and wrong. The external measurement of one’s value in the world is Saturnian in origin and, inherent in the archetypal nature of Saturn, always bound to be in need of improvement. Saturn gives us the motivation not only to create limits and boundaries, but also to break out and surpass outmoded limitations and inadequacies.

Lunar aspects are deeply enmeshed in the nonverbal, interior wellspring of self-acceptance, importance, and lovability. For instance, individuals can feel quite happy within themselves, seeing themselves for who and what they are, but can feel very anxious and inferior when with others or in comparison to others. When lunar aspects describe and coincide with rejection, abuse, or a harsh environment, these conditions are difficult to transform simply because they are part of the nonverbal memory.

Mother Moon, Father Sun

I am at two with nature.
— Woody Allen

The necessity of lunar/maternal bonding is without question. And the hope for solar/heroic protection from father still exists. Regardless of the slow, systemic transition that the collective is undergoing socially, gender is still strong, and women bear and birth babies — for better or worse. Men sire children and aid their development — for better or worse. That is the foundation of the primordial family, and not much has changed in our deepest needs and expectations. In this dramatic time of chaos-before-change, societal gender roles are in question intellectually; however, though big change is afoot, it is not likely to be in the archetypal realm of masculine and feminine.

The mother is the most important being to a child’s sense of security in the body-sense, and the father is equally important as the primary contact with something outside mother that is safe. Archetypally, Father brings a whiff of the adventurous, the mysterious, the world “out there,” which piques the child into moving beyond the lunar/maternal world into the solar/paternal world in her own time. Now, obviously, a woman can also embody the adventures of the outer world, just as a man has the modern privilege of being at home, but from my experience and observation, men are still men and women are still women, and babies know the difference. (4)

Babies recognize their mothers and fathers instantly. Infants need the touching, coddling, feeding, and presence of their mothers well into early childhood — and beyond — but it is during the first two years that the child’s inner feelings of love and security are established. This bonding will bear the child into adulthood with good basics in survival, love, and trust. Today, although we have many configurations of parents — same-gender parents, two (or more!) sets of parents, and single parents — the principles remain the same: The masculine archetype sets the relationship with the outer world, and the feminine archetype sets the tone for the inner world.

The child begins to reach out to the solar world increasingly between the ages of around 18 months to two years. The ego becomes strong and lithe, and carries the child into new realms. Little by little, her fear of losing Mother, when she moves toward Father and the threshold of adventure, diminishes. When the child moves forward and glances backward, metaphorically or literally, and sees the safety of her background source, she is that much better equipped to continue on with the unknown, the forces of the future.

Mars Return: Coming to Consciousness of Oneself

Between ages two and three comes the first of several major leaps forward in our life growth — emotionally, psychologically, physically, and neurologically. It is when Mars returns to its natal place and moves on. The age of two-plus is a time for pushing boundaries to test power and getting what one wants. This is normal, as well as instinctive behaviour, and unique to each child. The most significant outcome of this phase is how we first experience ourselves as an individual, and the response we receive is the single most important factor. A two-year-old is trying to push the baby back and move toward full childhood.

It is the first time that a child consciously realizes his power and ability to choose and decide. The first tendency for a child at this time in life is to say “NO” to almost anything that is suggested or demanded. Ultimately, this is when the little cutie begins to “separate” from his parents and struggles to find personal identity.

Astrologically, this burst of personality development and personal will is related to the planet Mars, which takes two years and two months to orbit the Sun, and thus it returns to the place it occupied at birth at that age. Mars is about drive, desire, passion, ambition, challenge, pushing through, breaking boundaries, and thrusting out into the world. It is about being appropriately in charge. The two-year-old “world” is the family, and it is the family that has the greatest hand in how the rapidly developing child will eventually learn how to be the adult that he will become.

The first Mars return kicks in as assertion and even aggression; there is an instinctive frustration in two-year-olds that is about “staking their claim” in their environment. Testing the patience and boundaries of parents and siblings is part of finding out how far they can go, and whether their parents care enough to help them become empowered, but not tyrannical.

Psychologically, it is the first step toward individuation — that is, becoming more of who one is to become. But the family that is ruled by a two-year-old is an unhappy family. A family with the patience to hold aggression and anger in check teaches the beloved child something far beyond being good or bad; it helps to hone Mars from the sword into the ploughshare, from the attacker into the quester.

Remember that it is a phase, and a time for immense learning on all sides. The child of two-plus is seeking his freedom within healthy boundaries and is virtually saying,

“Help me with this strange and angry frustration and this need to lash out and hurt, so that I can learn how to get what I want and need in a way that will give both you and me satisfaction.”

In this way, the “terrible twos” become the safe and positive testing ground for a kid’s natural aggression, assertion, passion, thrust, and ambition! We can think of it as a “Mars attack!” when primitive childlike actions rise up. And if we can find a way to move that energy toward a positive focus, we will be rewarded ultimately by our child’s adult success.

Jupiter Sextile the Natal Place

At the age of two years, Jupiter is sextile to its natal place. Mars and Jupiter are significant for the two-to-three-year-old phase of childhood. This phase is marked by high adventure, wandering about, exploring, and demanding that life be interesting, entertaining, exciting, exhausting, and generally a place of mayhem. Within that drive for achievement, there is still the baby, the lunar child. The little boy or girl can vacillate from great accomplishments at the toolbox and on the jungle gym to whining for the bottle. It is a sweet and touching time in the baby/child’s life, but this can also be an exhausting time for both mother and father.

This ambivalence of needs — freedom/closeness — is expressed symbolically through the Moon—Mars—Jupiter combination, and parents need to respond to each need as it arises, rather than fight the swings of mood. If the nature of the child is taken as it comes, then she learns what really works and how to go about claiming legitimate praise, honours, and success (Jupiter) — a value that will mature and stand up in adulthood. If her Moon is soothed, her Mars will find positive ways of asserting itself, and her Jupiter will eventually come to understand moderation, control, and objectivity within exploration.

Age Three: Enter Zeus/Jupiter

Around the age of three years, we are rapidly emerging from the ouroboric stage of relationship, the one wherein the baby/child and mother/universe are fused and unified. The emergence of the ego, the sense of I-am-ness, of uniqueness and separation from mother, brings a new confidence to both child and parent. The child really is who he is now, and from this point onward, the emergence of real personality, social skills, curiosity, and response to the world outside of home and family grows rapidly. The ego and the deep Self are both contained in the symbol of the Sun, and solarism relates to consciousness.

The ego is the “I am,” the vehicle for the nascent Self, which is unconscious and is all that we are and will become, including that which we are in potential. The circle of the Sun symbolizes the ego, the container, and the dot in the middle symbolizes the seed of Self at the core of the individual. Prior to the two-year-old phase, the child is largely lunar. He is still deeply immersed in the mysterious, vulnerable, dependent, and maternal stage in life.

Thus, two planets seem to take precedence if we think in terms of solar system individuation — the Sun and Jupiter. Both the Sun and Jupiter are sky deities and are observant, dominant, masculine, active, and extravert by nature; similarly, the positions of the Sun and Jupiter in the chart speak of the paternal legacy. How was father the moral arbiter? Were dogmas forced or introduced? Was the child allowed to speak his own mind? I always felt that my children could think what they wanted, but certain behaviours were not acceptable — freedom of mind, but not always of action!

Astrologically, Jupiter is in a square to its natal place at this time, and a great step outward and forward is made in these years. Although signs of right and wrong, good and bad, values and discernment in social relationships are already present, it is in this phase that the child becomes a thinking judge of his environment and deeply aware of his own culpability. Young children instinctively detect what is fair and what is pleasing to others, their parents in particular. So they may act out what they think is expected of them, rather than act on their innate, visceral knowledge.

Also, Jupiter has to do with tribal instincts and relating on a highly sophisticated level. The moral tone of the family, the small tribe in which a child finds himself, is rapidly comprehended and absorbed. The three-to-five-year-old child is profoundly receptive to undercurrents in the family, and intensely experiences any and all discord. Though the child may have entered the “solar” phase of greater self-awareness, all discord is still self-attributed, and lays the groundwork for the future adult’s ability to discern when he has indeed done something wrong.

The prevailing religious feeling in the home may or may not suit the adult who will result from the child, and it is during these tender years that the awareness of the distinction between honesty and hypocrisy is stored in the psyche. Children are embarrassed by falsity — they become either aggressive or seemingly oblivious. They are not oblivious, but are socially aware and will turn away from something dark and musty. They can easily be shamed and thus impaired in their own self-honesty, suppressing it in favour of what will gain approval from the gods — the parents — and elder siblings, should there be any.(5) All are Jupiter qualities.

A child between the ages of three and five begins to articulate his developed sense of values, his own moral code, and is aggressive and convincing in arguing his case. A child with a strong Jupiter (rising, conjunct/opposing the lights, retrograde, or the most heavily aspected planet) will have already become a little Zeus or Dione, as the case may be, and will have a high moral tone with well-developed attitudes about how the world should be run — and, as is the case with Jupiter, a lot of personal license for freedom.

Around the time that Saturn begins to form a semi-square to its natal position, between the ages of three-and-three-quarters and four-and-a-half to five, we are well on our way to a new stage when consolidation of that which is learned and that which is innate begins to occur. And by the age of five, with Saturn sextile its natal placement, we embark upon the next phase of early childhood.

Five to Seven-and-a-Half: The World Beckons

It is in this sextile phase of the Saturn transit that the child discovers and implements her own boundaries and personal and persona identity, based not only on her inner self-worth but also by measuring herself against how she perceives others. No longer does the child respond only to external directives from parents, elders, and other children, but she now has volition, conscience, and a well-developed sense of her own justice and morality. A child now knows within herself what she feels and thinks is right and wrong, and is quite capable of knowing when personal boundaries are being probed or crossed.

This is a fairly accelerated and contented time for many children, as they are no longer forcing issues or being forced, but are building on their resources. Like the period in adulthood that corresponds to this time — from age 30 to 36 — the child is rapidly developing her talents and experiencing the exhilaration of having “arrived.” The first Jupiter opposition to its natal position occurs at age six, the second one at 18, and the first “adult” Jupiter opposition at the age of 30 — all are potent age-points. The prototype of the evolving ethical cycles of life is bred in the bone in the ages from six to seven-and-a-half.

By seven, the involvement with the outside world is more urgent, and the inner life of the child meets the world at large.

Schooling has likely been introduced much earlier, but now it means that the child must relate to a much more complex situation in which she must navigate alone. This is a hard time for both parent and child, as it is the first step away from the known world of family into the unknown universe of strangers, and the first real tests of society are presented.

The first Saturn square to its natal place, which occurs at approximately age seven-and-a-half, marks a crossing of the threshold to fulfilling “the seeds of future events ... that are carried within ourselves.” And, as Lawrence Durrell wisely noted, “They are implicit in us and unfold according to the laws of their own nature.” The earliest work is done, and the foundations are laid for the future of the adult to come.

References and Notes:
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in The Mountain Astrologer, Feb./March 2000. It is republished here in a slightly revised form, with the author’s permission.
1. Melanie Reinhart, Incarnation: The Four Angles and the Moon’s Nodes, CPA Press, 1997.
2. Erin Sullivan, Saturn in Transit: Boundaries of Mind, Body, and Soul, Chapter 2: “The Natural Cycles of Saturn,” Weiser Books, 2000, pp. 33-40.
3. Alice Miller, The Drama of the Gifted Child, Basic Books, 1981, p. 8.
4. Erin Sullivan, The Astrology of Family Dynamics, Chapter 4: “The Sun and the Moon in Families,” Weiser Books, 2001, pp. 79-115. Also see “The Water Houses” in the Weiser edition, pp. 170-194; this chapter deals specifically with the three primary family houses: the 4th, 8th, and 12th.
5. Brian Clark, The Sibling Constellation: The Astrology and Psychology of Sisters and Brothers, Arkana, Contemporary Astrology Series, 1999. This book focuses on the astrology, psychology, and mythology of siblings. This is a unique and original book, delving deeply into sibling relationships as essential components of our own psyche, and the foundations of all forms of relating. It is a must-read for astrologers and psychotherapists.

Published in: The Mountain Astrologer, Jun/Jul 2017.

Author:
Erin Sullivan has been an internationally respected astrologer, teacher, counselor, and writer for more than 45 years. She was instrumental in many groups and conferences that we now enjoy. From 1988-2001, Erin served as commissioning editor for the Contemporary Astrology Series, Penguin Arkana, London, publishing some of the best minds in our field. Her six innovative astrology books are on the course lists of many astrology schools. Erin maintains an international consulting practice and teaches for schools and online conferences. Her two training courses — Working with Astrology: Principles and Practice of Contemporary Astrology; and Archetypal Psychological Astrology in Contemporary Practice — are designed for self-directed learning; they are creatively illustrated and thorough. Find full curricula on her website: https://www.ErinSullivan.com

© 2017/22 - Erin Sullivan

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