Mythic Zodiac

APRIL 2012 FORECAST

One of the casualties of the Uranus Square Pluto transit may be the Federal Reserve.  It was born in Nov 1910 with the Sun at 1 degree of Capricorn.  Pluto has been conjuncting that point and Uranus has been squaring it.

I remember in the mid 80’s sitting in a small group in DC with a speaker telling us that the Federal Reserve was not federal but was a scam run by a group of bankers.  It was heresy at the time.  We had our little handouts about it and thought how come no one knows about this?

Lately a lot of buzz about the Federal Reserve has been on the internet.  Check out this YouTube clip called The Creature from Jekyll Island. I heard a few days ago that Ben Bernanke is giving talks about the Federal Reserve, its origin and purpose.  It’s a sign of the times that our institutions need to explain the reason for their existence.  What struck me watching this film on the Federal Reserve is that the conservative religious right has been making a lot of noise lately about strict interpretation of the bible., but they have not addressed usury which is one of the oldest sins in “the book”. Usury is basically what the Federal Reserve is based on.

Other news this month is that Neptune went into Pisces in February, Neptune rules Pisces making this is the strongest that Neptune gets.  Astrologers have been watching the news like a hawk looking for the Neptunian themes to be written or talked about in the media. Neptune rules the oceans and I just heard that Titanic will be re-released this year (I think once was enough, but that’s me). Also James Cameron the director of the Titanic has dived to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, which is 6.77 miles deep, 50 times bigger than the Grand Canyon and the deepest part of any ocean.

This month Mercury turns direct on April 4, Pluto turns retrograde on April 10 and Mars finally goes direct on April 13.  That creates an unstable month.

Dates to Watch:

April 3 – Venus enters Gemini until August 7, 2012.  Venus goes retrograde in Gemini next month.  That is why she is staying so long in Gemini. This is a time for you and your loved one to give each other some breathing room.  In a close, enmeshed, emotional relationship, Gemini starts to gasp for air.

April 4 – Mercury turns direct.   You may start to move ahead, launch new projects and lighten up.  You may have had a blind spot during Mercury retrograde and now you can see clearly.

April 5 – Venus Square Neptune at 2 Gemini/Pisces.  You really don’t know who you love, who your friends are and how much money you have in the bank.  It’s not ADHD, blame it on the planets.  The advantage of knowing astrology is to always having something to blame instead of you.

April 6 – Full Moon at 3:19 PM at 17 Libra.  This Full Moon brings out your romantic, sensitive site.  It is the culmination of what you initiated on the New Moon of March 22.

April 7 – Venus Square Mars at 3 Gemini/Virgo.  This is not favorable for sex or for money.  You are spending too much at the shops and are way to aggressive in your relationships.

April 10 – Pluto turns Retrograde at 9 degrees of Capricorn until Sept 18, 2012.  This could be a truly transformative time.  Take care of unfinished business.

 April 13 – Mars turns direct at 3 degrees of Virgo. There may be confrontations today.  Mars is very strong when it is changing directions.  If you have personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus or Mars) you better hide or you may fly into a rage today.  But after this date, it is time to put your energy into the projects you care about.

 April 15 – Sun Opposite Saturn at 25 Aries/Libra.  Another angry day.  This brings frustration with it, so the person you want to tell off may be your boss and you just don’t think it would be a wise, economical move.  So you smolder. I can see the smoke coming out of your ears.

April 16 – Mercury moves into Aries until May 9. You have a little bit of a bite with  your words during this period.  You can be a little too sarcastic.

April 19 – Sun enters Taurus until May 20.  This is a great time of the month.  The Aries energy is over and we can relax and start doing the summer things, have a picnic or a party outdoors.

April 21 – New Moon at 3:18 AM at 1 Taurus.  Treat this as the beginning of the new energy after Mars and Mercury have turned direct.  New Moons mean new starts.

April 22 – Mercury conjunct Uranus at 6 Aries.  A sudden flash of intuition.  If you have personal planets at 6 degrees of Aries, you may receive sudden news.

April 23 – Sun trine Mars.  This is a very energetic day.  You can get a lot done if you exert yourself.

April 25 – Mercury Square Pluto at 9 Aries/Capricorn.  Our conversations today take on a compulsive tinge, “Why don’t you do what I say?”  Why are you so obstinate”?  That sort of thing.

April 29 – Sun Trine Pluto.  A powerhouse day.  You can dig into the work, especially repairs today.

OUTER PLANET TRANSITS 

JUPITER is in Taurus until June 11, 2012 this month and will move from 13 to 20 degrees. Now is the time to move ahead with your optimistic plans for the future, especially if you have the ascendant, Sun or Moon between 13 and 20 degrees of Taurus or Scorpio.

SATURN is in Libra (structure, foundation, and responsibility) until Oct 2012. This month Saturn is moving retrograde from 27 to 25 degrees of Libra.    If you have the Ascendant or any personal planets at 27 to 25 degrees of Libra in your natal chart, you may be in store for some hard lessons around the issues ruled by the planet and the house the planet is in or rules. Libra rules relationships of all kinds and Saturn may ask you to take on more responsibility for how your relationships work. 

URANUS is in Aries until 2018.  This month Uranus is moving from 4 to 6 degrees of Aries.  We all feel a need to rebel, we want more freedom and want to make some radical changes in our life.  I believe in “cooperating with the inevitable”.  If you have Uranus in a challenging aspect to your ascendant or personal planets, go on a long vacation, move, or make some major changes in your life.
 
NEPTUNE (creativity, sensitivity, escapism, dreams) is in Pisces until 2026. This month Neptune stays at 2 degrees of Pisces. A lack of focus, a sense of drifting or an inability to see a betrayal or disappointment until it's too late can be experienced by those of you with the Sun or Personal Planets 2 degrees of Pisces.  For the enlightened out there, Neptune can also bring artistic, musical, creative expression, increased dreams and spiritual insights. 

PLUTO is in Capricorn until 2023.  This month Pluto turns retrograde on April 10 and  will stay at 9 degrees of Capricorn. Everyone is feeling the urge to purge and to find his or her truth.  Profound changes will be felt especially by those with Sun, Ascendant or personal planets at 9 degrees of Capricorn or Cancer. 

Have a good month,

 

Janet Kane

 

2012 - Crises and Opportunity

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist” – Kenneth Boulding, Economist

 

From an astrological perspective, it is not too difficult to know what the nature of events will be in 2012.  We have seen that certain kinds of changes were going to come; now we see the results. In the year 2012 we will be in the pivotal point of this  change brought to us by the Uranus/Pluto square* in Cardinal Signs**  The square will be exact 7 times from Jun 24, 2012, to March 2015.                                     

    This is the most important and longest astrological aspect this year, and in fact the most significant influence since Uranus and Pluto were conjunct in the 1960′s. The last time Uranus was square Pluto was during the Great Depression of the 1930′s. We may be facing another depression equal to the 30’s.

     Uranus square Pluto also brings intense revolutions and rebellion against dictatorship.  This started last year when we saw dictators fall, but the vacuum created also brings the chance of even more extreme or religious regimes taking control amid the chaos. Remember the last series of squares was in the early 1930′s when Hitler consolidated his power at the climax of this aspect. 

    To understand Uranus/Pluto energy we look back to the 1960’s when these two planets were conjoined.   This is the first square since that time.  Whatever was started in the 60’s now needs to be expanded and expressed in new ways.  A waxing square can create lasting change. 

    Uranus and Pluto only form a conjunction once every 125 years and when they do it means the start of a new age.  The conjunction was exact in 1965 and 1966, but they were within 10 degrees of each other throughout the sixties.  In astrology the conjunction is the vision, the first square is manifesting the vision. How do we now implement the ideas we had in the 1960’s? 

    This year Uranus ruling sudden, unexpected shocking changes is in a tense square to Pluto which rules deep transformation.  Also, Pluto loves to expose the shadow side of those in Power.  We can expect a massive overhaul of our political, economic and social systems plus more corruption exposed. 

    Let us analyze this square and look at each of the two planets and what they bring to this dynamic aspect—the square. 

Pluto: 

    Pluto represents destruction and Capricorn the material world.  Pluto transforms and regenerates.  Pluto can shake our foundations creating chaos.   He will destroy the old power structures.  

    The square started to coalesce in 2008 when Pluto went into Capricorn.  Pluto is the planet of death and rebirth, think of Kali, the dark mother, cutting off heads.  Capricorn represents the economy, the government, the large corporations, all of our established institutions and structures.  Pluto will stay in Capricorn until 2020 and I expect it will take that long for our economic system to be destroyed and rebuilt. 

    Several economists said that 2008 was the year economic growth stopped and more importantly that our planet can’t support much more development. Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and John Maynard Keynes, all said that capitalism has an end date, it can’t go on forever.

    Thomas Friedman in the New York Times in March 2009 said, “What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession?  What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall – when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.” 

    Friedman really nailed it by picking 2008.  Maybe he is a covert astrologer. I think we are facing enormous crises because of unsustainable economic growth, not to mention climate change.  However, the news is not all bad.  Remember Pluto rules death and rebirth and the rebuilding that follows Pluto’s destruction may result in conditions and situations that are better then they were before.  More on the future later. 

    Let’s look at the effect that Pluto will have on some of the nations around the world and the Euro. Pluto is going to conjunct the UK Sun and the Euro (currency) Sun in February 2013, and oppose the US Sun the following year (2014). Before it does either of those things it's going to square the French Sun, the Chinese Sun and the German Sun which started this past  November and  go on through 2012. Events in China should have critical implications globally. The Chinese horoscope has her Sun being squared by transiting Pluto all 2012, a severe test on the leadership. Economic slowdown and internet led rebellions will be difficult to contain in all these countries. 

Uranus:

    Uranus moved into Aries March 11, 2011 the day of the Japanese earthquake.  Uranus is the sign of disruption and rebellion, and Aries is the sign of the individual.  Peoples around the world will be protesting for individual rights.  Occupy Wall Street began Sep 17, 2011. 

    Uranus will be in Aries for about 7 years, challenging us to act (Aries) in accordance with who we really are (Uranus). Aries is the sign of the warrior and Uranus is the planet of humanitarian aims. The changes happening in the world will accelerate.  The next 7 years will be full of disruptions and battles for independence. 

    Back in April 2011, I said that the US would not be immune to the protests.  In an interview, Michael Moore was very amused about the fact that corporations like Time Warner financed his movie, The Corporation, because they knew it would make them lots of money. They never thought that watching this movie would cause American to go out on the streets and protest.  He said that the Occupy Wall Street  movement looks like another American revolution.  From Michael Moore’s blog, “a majority of Americans are fearful and awaiting a resurgence of the economy so they can resume the life we've become habituated to.  When it becomes clear that our elected representatives-federal, state and local-are in cahoots with the thieves who wrecked the economy in 2008, and are now turning us over to them to do with as they please, the dodo will hit the blades.”

    The protests are happening around the world because it is a world transit; it affects everyone even though the immediate causes may be unique in each case.   The riots in London consisting of about  250,000 people, many throwing rocks at Star Bucks and MacDonald’s, indicates that in the West the  rebellion is anti-capitalism.   The riots in the Middle East are mostly against authoritarian rule. They both want freedom (Uranus in Aries) from oppression (Pluto). 

Our Future: 

Bad News

    The solar eclipse on May 20, 2012 looks very ominous for Israel.  This very same eclipse also negatively impacts the chart for Iran.  The June 4, 2012 eclipse hits the US ascendant (Sibly chart)

    This may mean that we get involved in this conflict. Pluto hit the US ascendant on 9/11.  Since Pluto will be squaring the US natal Sun/Saturn Square which will be exact in 2014, the US may suffer a major depression starting this year and for years to come and a war may be seen as a way out of this depression (also replicating the events in the 30’s). 

    Mars, the God of War, goes retrograde this month on January 23^rd until April 13, 2012.  The ancient astrologers believed that whoever attacked another during Mars retrograde would be defeated. 

Good News

The choice to be optimistic is the most important political choice an individual can make -- Paul Gilding 

    I recently read a book entitled, The Great Disruption:  Why the Climate Crises Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World by Paul Gilding.    He states

    “The now emerging failure of growth means our current model of social and economic progress is now in the messy and painful process of dying.  The only choices we get to make are how and when we change, not whether.  We have to redesign the economy, and with it much of our politics, personal expectations, and market, to fit in with the immovable physical reality of a finite planet.”         

    I used to give lectures on Voluntary Simplicity back in the mid nineties and I would cite a study by Donella Meadows called Limits to Growth, published in 1972.  I was so young and idealistic then, maybe not so young, but certainly not the cynical old Crone I am now.  I thought as soon as people learned that we are going to crash they would start to change.  But instead we went into denial and it will probably take a sudden crises before we wake up.  And according to Gilding, we will do extraordinary things when the crises hits.

    We will have the opportunity to recreate ourselves. I have seen changes happening, especially among the young. The people who will do well during 2012 will be those willing to let go of unnecessary material possessions, jobs that are just about amassing wealth and toxic lifestyles or relationships. Despite the challenges facing us as suggested by the aspects and eclipses, 2012 should be a year for great opportunities to those who are able to adapt to changing conditions. We also feel that conserving resources and leaving a smaller footprint on the earth would be wise and also liberating. 

    “Although the consumer sector and material goods would contract, the service and public sectors would expand dramatically. When we look at the world, we see a huge number of unmet needs: caring for elderly, restoring the environment, educating illiterate and unskilled youth, repairing decaying roads and infrastructure, providing health care, creating community markets and local enterprises, retrofitting the urban landscape for sustainability and many more. Because there are an enormous number of unmet needs, there are an equally large number of purposeful and satisfying jobs waiting to get done. There will be no shortage of employment opportunities in an Earth-friendly economy.”  Duane Elgin 

    I believe we are all connected to each other and to the earth.  So we have felt these changes coming for a long time.  Even those who were not aware of climate change or the future of the economy started setting up farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture, recycling centers and other cooperative types of organizations and systems. Across the world there are cities and towns adopting sustainable practices, some joining the Transition towns movement.

    I am now seeing extraordinary things happening in my own community. This is the time that grassroots efforts will probably carry far greater impact than ever before.  Here in Greenbelt, Maryland we have community bio intensive gardens and are planning orchards of nuts and fruit.  Two hundred forty households have signed up for wind energy to date.  We are also setting up a barter network.  We have created a partnership to  build solar panels for one of our local churches and plan on more of these types of partnerships.  We have had workshops on dehydrating food, sprouting, weatherizing our homes and soap making.  We have groups of people meeting in circles discussing and acting on ideas about voluntary simplicity, resilience, and climate action.

     I think the best thing we can do is to support these kinds of programs and try not to get dragged into the negativity and despair that is all around us because our old world is ending.  Hopefully, we can change to a resilient, sustainable society without too much upheaval. 

Janet Kane
Archetypal Astrologer

 

*Square Aspect:  A tense 90 degree aspect between two planets, they are not harmonious so it is difficult to get them to work together. 

**Cardinal signs :  Aires, Capricorn, Cancer and Libra are the signs that bring dynamic disruptive change especially if in a challenging aspect to other cardinal signs.  Cardinal signs denote pivotal moments in history.   It is life giving energy that invigorates, strengthens and vitalizes activities.

 

 

January 2012 Forecast

The dreaded 2012 is here!  I am reading all sorts of dire predictions about the end of the world. But I don’t think so! Most of these are based on the Mayan prophecies.  I think what happened is that the Mayans loved making calendars and had a wall listing dates (the Mayan long count) and when they got to the bottom of the wall, they ran out of space and stopped posting dates. They ended at the date of Dec 21, 2012 which has caused a panic, especially among astrologers and their readers.  That is my theory, but I may be wrong. 

I am reminded of one of The Simpsons episodes where the rapture (or as some of us call it, the rupture) occurs. As the true believers are floating up to heaven amidst total chaos, a Buddhist monk is standing with water rising around him saying – “I guess I was wrong, truth isn’t relative”.  That could also be me when the asteroid hits, I’ll think, OOPHS! I was wrong about my theory and it’s too late to retract my newsletter. 

2012 will be a pivotal year, though, and we can already see the changes. I think what Joanna Macy calls The Great Turning is occuring.  What we have been experiencing and will experience in the future is a move from an Industrial Growth Society to a Sustainable Society.  The change will be similar in scope to the time when we went from an Agricultural Society to an Industrial Society.  It doesn’t happen overnight and it isn’t a smooth transition. I will write more about the astrological signature of these changes in a future article.  Stay tuned.

This month: 

Mars turns retrograde on the 24^th.  Before that all planets are moving direct.  A good time to start a new project. 

Dates to Watch: 

Jan 1 – Mercury Square Mars.  Everyone around you is speaking their mind today.  It may not be pretty, don’t join in the rants.  Stay cool. 

Jan 9 – Full Moon at 18 Cancer at 2:20 AM.  This Full Moon is in a flowing aspect to Mars in Virgo.  A good time to make changes in your environment -- organize and clean.  This Full Moon shines a light on your family and your home. 

Jan 12 – Sun Trine Mars.  You have plenty of energy today and it flows in a harmonious way.  You can get a lot done without stepping on any toes. 

Jan 13 – Venus trine Saturn.   You may hear from a friend that you have not seen in a long time or some of the friendships you have may deepen. 

            Mercury Conjunct Pluto.   Your natural paranoia can get totally out of control today.  “Why is she looking at me that way – what is that person whispering about me – are the aliens about to land?”  You need to sign up for some cognitive therapy especially if you have personal planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus or Mars) or the ascendant at 7 degrees of Capricorn or Cancer. 

            Venus Conjunct Neptune.  Maybe your paranoia is not so misplaced, this aspect means that your friends may be keeping secrets from you; someone IS talking about you behind your back.  Or you could be totally deluded.  Watch out if you have personal planets or the ascendant at 29 degrees of Aquarius or Leo.

Jan 14 – Venus enters Pisces until February 8, 2012.  You get really mushy and cloying during this period and it is hard for someone like me with a touch of Aspergers to tolerate, so cut it out. 

Jan 19 – Sun Square Saturn at 29 Capricorn and Libra.  Time to get down to work, you have been goofing off since Christmas.  Today the boss will clamp down on you – “get off facebook, stop the internet shopping and dig into the pile of paper on your desk.”

 Jan 20 – Sun enters Aquarius until February 19.  I like it when the Sun is in Aquarius, it means that the Sun will enter my first house and that is the beginning of a new year for me.  When the Sun is in the sign of your ascendant you can begin a new cycle of growth.  It’s your New Year.  So this is a New Year for Aquarian Rising types. 

Jan 22 – Sun Square Jupiter.  You need to exhibit some self control today.  I know you want to go shopping, buy a lottery ticket and stop for some fast food and ice cream, but don’t do it.  Wait one day till this is over.  You probably won’t listen to me if you have personal planets or the ascendant at 1 degree of Aquarius or Taurus. 

Jan 23 – New Moon 2:30 AM at 2 Aquarius.  This is the beginning of a new circle.  Send out your intentions for what sort of creative projects you want to accomplish this month.  Aquarius is the sign of innovation and unusual, eccentric, out of the box ideas. 

            Mercury Trine Mars.  Good aspect for writing.  You are able to get your point across today. 

            Mars turns retrograde at 23 Virgo until Apr 14, 2012.  All of those laid back, sweet, yoga and organic food loving Virgos will be over stimulated during this period. They may even get angry, Horrors! 

Jan 27 – Mercury Square Saturn at 29 degrees of Capricorn/Libra.  You can butt heads with your boss or parent today.  They are trying to tell you what to do and you come back with an acerbic, sardonic, sarcastic remark. That really doesn’t help. 

                        Mercury enters Aquarius until Feb 13, 2012.  There are no restrictions on your thinking and speaking during this period.  Just let it fly -- the more outrageous the better. 

Jan 28 – Mercury Square Jupiter at 2 degrees Aquarius and Taurus.  Today, instead of your conversation being clever you are just totally obnoxious.  No one wants to hear about your great exploits and how wonderful you are. 

OUTER PLANET TRANSITS 

JUPITER is in Taurus until June 11, 2012 this month and will move from 9 degrees to 2 degrees. Now is the time to move ahead with our optimistic plans for the future,  especially if you have the ascendant, Sun or Moon between 0 and 2 degrees of Taurus or Scorpio.

SATURN is in Libra (structure, foundation, and responsibility) until Oct 2012. This month Saturn is moving from 28 to 29 degrees of Libra.  If you have the Ascendant or any personal planets at 28 or 29 degrees of Libra in your natal chart, you may be in store for some hard lessons around the issues ruled by the planet and the house the planet is in or rules. Libra rules relationships of all kinds and Saturn may ask you to take on more responsibility for how your relationships work. 

URANUS is in Aries and will stay in Aries until 2018.  This month Uranus is moving from 0 to 1 degrees of Aries.  Wanting freedom and a need to make radical changes will be felt by those with the Ascendant, Sun and personal planets at 0 or 1 degree of Aries or Libra.  I believe in “cooperating with the inevitable”.  If you have Uranus in a challenging aspect to your ascendant or personal planets, go on a long vacation, move, or make some major changes in your life.
 
NEPTUNE (creativity, sensitivity, escapism, dreams) is in Aquarius this month and will move from will move from 28 to 29 degrees of Aquarius this month. Neptune will move into Pisces in February 2012 and will stay in Pisces until 2026.  A lack of focus, a sense of drifting or an inability to see a betrayal or disappointment until it's too late can be experienced by those of you with the Sun or Personal Planets at 28 to 29 degrees of Aquarius or late Aquarius ascendant types.  For the enlightened out there, Neptune can also bring artistic, musical, creative expression, increased dreams and spiritual insights. 

PLUTO is in Capricorn until 2023.  This month Pluto will move from 7 to 8 degrees of Capricorn. Everyone is feeling the urge to purge and to find his or her truth.  Profound changes will be felt especially by those with Sun, Ascendant or personal planets at 7 or 8 degrees of Capricorn or Cancer. 

Have a great year!

Janet Kane

PS:  I want to thank all of my readers who have put up with my twisted sense of humor and for the comments you have posted on my blog.

 

Re-awakening the Green Man: A Myth for Our Time

 

          

We need to reinvent our myths from time to time.  The stories we tell ourselves determine who we become, who we are, what we believe”.  Sam Keen

 

The degradation of our environment is accelerating beyond the point of our being able to repair it. The problems are many and complex—from the destruction of our forests, to the dying off of our fish. Our impure air and water is causing worldwide increases in chronic diseases including severe challenge to our immune systems. Most threatening of all, climate change may raise temperatures and cause extreme weather conditions for thousands of years.   Scientists and experts such as Al Gore can show us charts of what is happening, but the facts and figures don’t reach into the depth of our heart and motivate us to change.  Joanna Macy, author and deep ecologist says, “We need to love the world in order to save it.”  Using our intellect in this area is not enough; we need to feel an emotional connection to the planet. Advertisers know that the best way to stir us is through images and stories, often culled from myths that deeply affect our psyche. 

Mythologist Sam Keen says that “The organizing myth of any culture functions in ways that may be creative or destructive, healthful or pathological.  By providing a world picture and a set of stories that explain why things are as they are, it creates consensus, sanctifies the social order and gives the individual an authorized map of the path of life.”  Another mythologist, Phil Couseneau, says that “Myth creates the plotline that organizes the diverse experiences of a persona or a community into a single story.  Myths come from the same place that dreams and art come from.  They bubble up from the depths of the soul.  They can’t be forced or constructed,…”  If there are new ecologically hopeful myths bubbling up from the collective conscious—to perhaps replace those that promote greed and consumerism—we need to honor them and encourage them in every way that we can.

One of these ecological myths is the story of the Green Man.  He has been part of our Western heritage for centuries. Depth psychologist Carl Jung says that archetypes are embedded in our collective unconscious and these archetypes are shared by all.  

The Green Man has a face that has leaves sprouting from his lips, eyes, nose and ears.  He is a combination of man and nature; he shows us that we can never be separate from the natural world, that we are part of the earth.   He signifies irrepressible life and represents the human longing for the natural world. 

His image is usually thought of as an amusing even sinister survival of the old pagan religions.  Remote origins of the Green Man go back to Neolithic times in the religions of old Europe and then reappear in Roman art in the 1^st century.   In classical Greece the Green Man was represented by Dionysus or Bacchus in Roman mythology. Dionysus taught the art of agriculture and he represented abandonment to the power of nature.  He was intoxicated by the grape vine and was called the God of Wine.  A typical belief about Dionysus is that if you don’t celebrate with him you are denying your own wildness and can become a victim of uncontrolled chaos. 

Many indigenous peoples saw the Green Man as a spirit of the woods.  He appears in art, stories and folk plays from the Middle Ages and they continue on to present time.  The Green Man was the central figure in May Day celebrations and was often called the King of May. There is a record of a May Day festival on the Isle of Man in 1020.  Throughout Europe May Day revels are still vigorously celebrated with the Green Man playing a central role in all of them. The games during many of these festivals represent the struggle between the king of winter and the king of summer. May 1^st is seen as the time to honor the Green Man to ensure the success of the crops and bring forth the fruits and vegetables.  The May Pole featured in these festivities represents the connection between heaven and earth and the children winding the ribbons around the pole depict the endless pattern of creativity that connects them to the god and goddess. 

So, how and why does evoking the particular image of the Green Man give us hope for our future? In 1992, in his book, The Voice of the Earth, Theodroe Roszak coined the term Ecopsychology, which is the study of our emotional bond with the earth.  Roszsak wrote that there is a synergistic relation between planetary and personal well being, that the needs of the one are relevant to the other.   Mental health cannot be understood simply in the narrow context of our self or our social relations.  It has to include the relationship of humans to other species and the ecosystem.  Our relationship with the earth has a long and deep evolutionary history.  Humans are dependent on healthy nature not only for our physical sustenance but for our mental health as well. We can go so far as to say that we are not separate from nature.   

Jung offered his theory of compensation--that an archetype will reappear in a new form to redress imbalances in society at a particular time when it is needed.  According to this theory, the Green Man is rising up into our present awareness in order to counterbalance a lack in our attitude toward Nature. Science is predicting that in this century the torrid zones of the earth will be reduced to desert and close to a quarter of the earth’s human population will be reduced to a state of destitution as a consequence of the destruction of the Amazonian, African and Indonesian rainforests.  It is no wonder that the Green Man is returning at a time of such danger to his domain.  He is reminding us of the union that ought to be maintained between humanity and Nature.  He is a symbol of hope, but he is also challenging us with difficult tasks, such as how to live in fruitful interchange with the environment. 

As we destroy the ecosystem something in us dies as well. We then feel a loss of connection to nature, but celebrating the archetype of the Green Man can speak to us today and can remind us of what we have lost and help us to become conscious and to recover our bond with the natural world.   Because we have meddled with nature we need to again perform rituals and have our ceremonies to honor the Green Man.  

The Green Man shows his face today at Fairy, Green Man and May Day festivals around the world.  There we celebrate the natural world, the fecundity of all life and humanity’s connection to the Earth. We can personally celebrate the Green Man all year round by planting community gardens, planting bulbs in our home in the winter, maintaining a window box or building a shrine to the Green Man in our yard. You only need a few pieces of wood, leaves and twine to make a stick figure to bring the Green man into your life.   

The Green Man is now crying out for help to heal our planet so that mankind can continue its partnership with nature. By honoring the natural energy of the Green Man we will be able to begin to reintegrate ourselves into our natural environment. When Thich Nhat Hahn, a noted Buddhist teacher, was asked what we could do to save our world, he replied “We must hear within ourselves the sound of the earth crying.” 

John Matthews, author of The Green Man, sums it up quite well:

The Green Man’s archetypal presence reminds us of other possibilities.  By honoring the natural energy he personifies, we may yet find a way to reintegrate ourselves into our natural environment.  If we succeed we will certainly find the Green Man waiting for us, holding out the hand of fellowship, as we envision the possibility of a new earthly paradise, or at least of rediscovering the lost greenness of our own souls…

Resources:   

Man and His Symbols – C. G. Jung 1968

Green Man:  The Archetype of our Oneness with the Earth by William Anderson 1990 

Ecopyschology by Roszak, Gomes and Kanner 1995 

Coming Back to Life:  Practices to Reconnect our Lives, Our World by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown 1998 

Once and Future Myths: The Power of Ancient Stories in Modern Times by Phil Cousineau 2001 

World as Lover, World as Self: Courage for Global Justice and Ecological Renewal by Joanna Macy 2007 

Chesapeake Education, Arts and Research Society  http://www.chears.org 

Green Man Sites  

http://bogbrothers.org/ 

http://www.greenbeltgreenmanfestival.org 

Janet Kane

© 2010

Janet Hartley Kane is an astrologer, mythologist and environmental activist living in Greenbelt, MD.  You can contact her at [email protected] or visit her blog at http://www.janetszodiac.com