Archetypes and the Planets

Why do some places make you feel more alive, while others never quite feel like home? In this episode, we explore astrocartography through our own stories of immigration, travel, friendship, and creative opportunity. From Madrid to Missoula, Prague to the Camino, we consider how places -- and the people who come from them -- can shape a life. Along the way: highlights from UAC, planetary lines you can walk in your own neighbourhood, and why chasing a Jupiter line isn’t a good enough reason to pack up and move.

In this episode we explore Jung’s concept of individuation which is the lifelong process of becoming more fully ourselves by recognizing and integrating parts of the psyche that have remained unconscious. We discuss how dreams, fairy tales, creativity, and synchronicity can provide clues to what is asking to be acknowledged, and why individuation often involves periods of difficulty, disruption, and profound change. We also explore astrology as a map of this process, looking at how planetary complexes, major transits, and cycles such as the Saturn return, Uranus opposition, and Chiron return can correspond with important developmental passages. Along the way, we consider how individuation asks us to separate inherited expectations and collective values from the life that is genuinely ours to live.

Marriage in this episode is framed as our very human “Eden project”: the fantasy of finding a magical other who will restore a lost sense of total safety, oneness, and being fully seen—and the necessity of withdrawing those projections if we want real relationship instead of a spiritualized dependency. Drawing on James Hollis, Marie‑Louise von Franz, Jung, Rilke, Plato, astrology, and romantic literature, we explore marriage as a symbolic, alchemical vessel: a third thing that holds two distinct individuals in a lifelong conversation between conscious and unconscious, where difficult aspects, wounds, and disappointments become material for individuation rather than proof of failure. 

In this episode, we look at the astrological ages as a giant mirror for the human psyche. We dive into the precession of the equinoxes, that 26,000-year cycle that slowly drags the spring equinox across the zodiac and rewires our mythologies in the process. We also apply Carl Jung’s psychological theories and the heavy-duty research from Hamlet’s Mill to figure out where we find ourselves now. We track the move from following external religious leaders and a shift toward individual individuation and high-tech complexity. These cosmic metaphors are tools for making sense of human consciousness while the culture feels like it is shifting under our feet.

In this episode we examine how translation influences meaning across psychological and spiritual traditions. We discuss examples from religious and historical texts, consider the work of Giordano Bruno and Frances Yates, and reflect on “masculine” and “feminine” as symbolic principles shaping human experience. Books Mentioned:   James Hollis Under Saturn’s Shadow Frances Yates Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition S.J. Parris Heresy (Historical Fiction) Demetra George Mysteries of the Dark Moon Iamblichus On the Mysteries Plato Timaeus Richard Gotshalk The Classic of Way and Her Power (Lao Tzu translation) Erich Neumann The Fear of the Feminine Iain McGilchrist The Matter with Things  

In this episode, we dive into the hidden mathematical and geometric architecture of the cosmos. Inspired by the work of John Addey, we look at "Harmonic Astrology," which moves away from static house divisions toward a dynamic, wave-based view of the birth chart. We also explore the wonderful book by John Martineau--A Little Book of Coincidence: In the Solar System. Is the universe a machine or a symphony? From the "Seal of Hermes" to the mystery of the number 108, find out why your birth chart might be more like a piece of music than a map.   Other books mentioned:   The Inner Reaches of Outer Space by Joseph Campbell. Jesus Christ, Sun of God, by David Fideler. The Little Book of Coincidence (originally an academic thesis called The Big Book of Coincidence) by John Martineau. Harmonograph: A Visual Guide to the Mathematics of Music by Anthony, who is John Martineau's grandfather. In Love with Venus by Angela Moore. Elements by Euclid The Quadrivium by John Martineau.  

In this episode, we break down the mythology, music, and philosophy of Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde ahead of the Metropolitan Opera’s production this month. We trace the myth to its 12th-century Celtic roots and examine its psychological meaning using the work of Joseph Campbell and Robert A. Johnson. We detail how Wagner applied Arthur Schopenhauer’s philosophy to create the "Tristan chord," a musical innovation built entirely around unfulfilled longing. This is the opera that changed the art form and influenced many other artists beyond the operatic world. The myth itself sparked a revival of the “feminine” in the West, introducing a wholly new concept of romantic love that led to a change in consciousness itself.

In this episode, we examine the approaching Saturn–Neptune conjunction in Aries as a way to ask how cultures shape their myths, maps and collective identities using Spain as an example. We begin with Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl moment reclaiming “the Americas,” then explore how recurring Saturn–Neptune cycles echo through history in the blurring of borders, the collapse of old narratives, and the struggle between idealism and hard reality. We look at visionary rulers, explorers who mistook one world for another, artists who turned confusion into beauty, and political figures who fused devotion with rigidity. Along the way we consider how countries develop archetypal signatures, how illusions can structure entire eras, and how the arts often preserve what official histories erase. We close with demographics, future maps, and what this conjunction might signal about collective imagination and the choices we make together.

In this episode, we pick up from where we left before, tracing the thread running through science, symbolism, and human meaning. We return to the Pauli-Jung connection, Kepler’s mathematics, Fludd’s rejected cosmology, and the ancient Goal-Year cycles that linked planetary motion to deep time. We revisit Jung's notion that number acts as an ordering principle across cultures and discuss how ideas emerge, why some are silenced, and why others return in new forms. We move from buried archives in Zurich to Babylonian astronomy to questions about how humans create myth. The conversation ends with a simple challenge: what are you attending to, and how does your attention shape the world you live in?   Books Mentioned:   • The Innermost Kernel by Suzanne Gieser • Atom and Archetype (Correspondence between Wolfgang Pauli and C.G. Jung) • Psychology and Religion by C.G. Jung • Answer to Job by C.G. Jung • Divination and Synchronicity by Marie-Louise von Franz • A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World, Alexander Jones

In this epidose, we explore the hidden bridge between psyche and matter through the extraordinary meeting of analytical psychology and quantum physics. At its center is the unlikely dialogue between Carl Jung and a Nobel Prize–winning physicist whose inner life, dreams, and obsessions revealed that the unconscious does not stop at the edges of the mind. Drawing on Marie-Louise von Franz’s work, we explore how numbers are not merely quantities but living patterns that structure both inner experience and physical reality. The deeper argument is a cultural one: modern life has privileged measurement over meaning, calculation over consciousness. What is being asked for here is not a rejection of science, but an integration--where individuation, symbolic awareness, and psychological depth become essential for living in a world that has forgotten how to see meaning. Note: Just as we were discussing the Pauli effect [lab equipment of all kinds would stop working whenever Pauli was in the room], my power went off, the Internet crashed and kicked us both out of the recording. We were able to resume but had a good laugh about "Pauli being in the room."   Books Discussed Conversations with Marie-Louise von Franz (Inner City Books) Number and Time by Marie-Louise von Franz 137: Jung, Pauli, and the Pursuit of a Scientific Obsession by Arthur I. Miller Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Volume 13 The Jung-Pauli Conjecture and Its Impact Today (anthology) Valley of Diamonds, J. Gary Sparks

In this episode we explore ancient Babylonian star lore as a synchronistic “heavenly writing” that links sky and earth through meaning rather than physical causation, drawing on the work of scholars like Francesca Rochberg and Gavin White’s book Babylonian Star-lore. These works allow us to connect Babylonian ideas about constellations, portals of the dead, and ancestral sky myths with Jung’s notion of synchronicity, Marie-Louise von Franz’s insights into number and myth, and Rick Tarnas’s view of the living cosmos. The conversation ranges through cultural astronomy (including Bernadette Brady’s work), the misdating and later dismissal of the Corpus Hermeticum, and historical episodes such as George Smith’s discovery of the Babylonian flood tablets in Ashurbanipal’s library, which emerged alongside Darwin, Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud in a period that shook religious certainties. We also discuss how indigenous and Babylonian sky stories encode seasonal tasks and ritual responses to planetary configurations, Along the way, we return repeatedly to the need for a living, metaphorical relationship with the cosmos, arguing that when astrology is treated as a qualitative language of time rather than a failed “science,” it restores a sense of dialogue with an ensouled universe.

In this episode, we trace how the Romantic era still shapes inner life and culture, moving from Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley to Frankenstein and Guillermo del Toro’s new film to ask what they reveal about technology, AI, and the rejected “other.” We follow the radical lives and charts of Wollstonecraft and Shelley, reading Frankenstein as a warning from a mechanistic worldview that exiles feeling, relationship, and the feminine. Along the way we track Saturn–Neptune cycles and Pluto in Aquarius from the French Revolution and the steam engine to today’s AI moment, draw on Liz Greene’s view of artists as Saturn–Neptune mediators of the imaginal, and weave in works that speak to this moment including del Toro’s Frankenstein, and Rosalía’s orchestral track Berghain. We consider whether we may again be at a threshold when any new renaissance of consciousness will hinge on bringing feeling, imagination, and the feminine principle back into both psyche and culture.   Books and other material mentioned in the episode: Andrea Wulf, “Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and the Invention of the Self”  Charlotte Gordon, “Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley”  Thomas Elsner, “A Flash of Golden Fire: The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of the Modern Soul in Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’” Liz Greene, “Neptune and the Quest for Redemption” Neil Howe, “The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End”  Film and television 6) Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein”  Simon Schama, “The Romantics and Us” (BBC series on Romantic art, politics, and the modern self): Music 8) Rosalía, “Berghain” (single with Björk and Yves Tumor, from the album Lux) Official video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TKYd-pHo1A Podcasts and online resources 10) Chasing Consciousness podcast episode with Jungian analyst Monica Wikman on dreams of the dying and the death process [September 24, 2025]  

In this episode of Archetypes and the Planets, we follow Hermes’ trail through history to rethink what Uranus in Gemini (c. 2025–2033) might signal. Instead of focusing on geopolitics, we track Mercurial patterns: dialogue, translation, dispersal of knowledge, trickster authorship, and sudden cross-pollination between disciplines. Stops on the journey include Plato’s formative years amid the Peloponnesian aftermath; Pythagorean/Egyptian influences; the Renaissance return of Plato via Cosimo de’ Medici, Marsilio Ficino, and the Corpus Hermeticum; the printing press and the Council of Florence (a Gemini-style East/West bridge); Paracelsus’ iconoclastic blend of alchemy, medicine, and folk knowledge; Rosicrucian pamphlets and networked secrecy; Shakespeare’s alchemical imagination (with a nod to The Winter’s Tale). The hour culminates with Isaac Casaubon’s linguistic redating of the Corpus (1614) and a reflection on our present: AI, translation at scale, cybersecurity, and the perennial need to converse with a living cosmos (à la Richard Tarnas). Part 2 will pick up with Jung’s late works and the 19th–20th-century occult revivals. Books mentioned (from the episode) Richard Tarnas — Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View Thomas Moore — The Planets Within: The Astrological Psychology of Marsilio Ficino Thomas Moore — The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life Frances Yates — Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition “Three Initiates” — The Kybalion C. G. Jung — Psychology and Alchemy C. G. Jung — Answer to Job C. G. Jung — Mysterium Coniunctionis Priscilla Costello — Shakespeare and the Stars Corpus Hermeticum (classical Hermetic texts; frequently published in book form) NOTE: Some spaces are still available in Jenny's course on family dynamics! Here is the info: Here is the link: https://caeli.institute/event/three-deep/ This six-week Zoom lab for those with a basic grasp of astrological synthesis explores the compelling presence of ancestors’ lives in the natal chart. We will survey ancient and modern techniques for identifying uncanny patterns within family lines. Chart your genogram, work in cozy breakout sessions, and consider rituals and remediations for working with genealogical sludge. Limited to 16 students.

In this episode, we explore James Hillman's book The Soul's Code, focusing on Hillman's "acorn theory," which posits that individuals are born with the full potential for their unique gifts—much like an acorn contains the pattern of an oak tree. We contrast this with compensatory psychological theories and argue that Hillman offers a more empowering perspective on adversity. The conversation also touches on astrological concepts as metaphors for understanding fate, destiny, and the human psyche, examining how Hillman's work challenges traditional empirical psychology by emphasizing meaning and purpose over causality. Finally, we look at Hillman's chart to see how it aligns with his revolutionary ideas.   Information about Jenny's course at the CAELI Institute: Here is the link: https://caeli.institute/event/three-deep/ This six-week Zoom lab for those with a basic grasp of astrological synthesis explores the compelling presence of ancestors’ lives in the natal chart. We will survey ancient and modern techniques for identifying uncanny patterns within family lines. Chart your genogram, work in cozy breakout sessions, and consider rituals and remediations for working with genealogical sludge. Limited to 16 students.  

In this episode we explore how writers—those mythic figures of our cultural psyche—embody astrological archetypes. From the enigma of Shakespeare’s authorship to the Neptunian dreamscapes of García Márquez, we ask: what patterns recur in the charts of those whose words reshape worlds? Jenny dives deep into the Shakespeare authorship debate through the lens of astrology, comparing the birth charts of Shakespeare and the fascinating Amelia Bassano—court insider, musician, and possible contributor to the plays. Together, we reflect on Neptune’s veil, Mercury’s signature, and the literary imagination as a mirror of the collective unconscious. Béa brings her own obsessions to the table: the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez, the witty social commentary of Jane Austen, and the radical linguistic experiments of James Joyce. What do their charts reveal? And how do these planetary patterns resonate with the creative forces that shaped their genius?   🪐 Writers discussed: Shakespeare, Amelia Bassano, Gabriel García Márquez, Jane Austen, James Joyce

In this episode, we explore how eclipse placements and Scorpio themes in the British Royal Family’s charts reveal patterns of duty, sacrifice and buried tensions. We then turn to Tim and Jeff Buckley, tracing recurring astrological signatures of grief and abandonment back to their Irish immigrant roots and the trauma of the Potato Famine. By mapping family charts together, we uncover how generational wounds and strengths continue to shape personal destinies.    

Do you ever wonder how your family’s past might quietly shape your destiny? In this episode we delve into ancestral patterns hidden in astrology charts. From repeating family dramas to generational secrets and trauma, we explore how becoming aware of these unseen influences can empower you to rewrite your story. Tune in to discover how your ancestors' stories live on--and how you can consciously change the narrative. The books mentioned in the podcast episode are: The Astrology of Fate by Liz Greene Dynasty: The Astrology of Family Dynamics by Erin Sullivan The Family Legacy by Brian Clark The Ancestor Syndrome by Anne Ancelin Schützenberger Swamplands of the Soul by James Hollis Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel  

In this episode, Béa and Jenny consider the definition of “psychological astrology” and revisit a classic by Dr. Liz Greene, “Barriers and Boundaries: The Horoscope and the Defenses of the Personality.” What does each sign or planet fear most, and what are its defenses against these primal fears? How are such defenses adaptive, even creative, and when do they cross the line into pathology or self destruction?    We contrast 20th century psychological astrology with current trends in traditional astrology. Have efforts to recover Hellenistic, Islamicate, and Babylonian astrology in recent decades emphasized technique while often downplaying the voluminous psychological material implicit in traditional delineations? How do fate and remediation show up in each approach?    We look at the vibrant archetypal astrology movement inspired by Stan Grof which often employs holotropic/psychedelic depth work to “enter” and work directly with the deepest fears in the chart. Lastly, we consider the current Zeitgeist and how fears and defenses can play out on the national and global level.

In this episode, Jenny and Béa discuss dreamwork—how to get started, what to do if dream recall is challenging, and the catalytic role of dream groups in enriching our engagement with the unconscious. We look at vivid dream symbols that are rooted in powerful natal astrological placements as well as world transits. Finally, Jenny chats with John Temple, a dedicated student of Jung and creator of the Temenos dream app, which uses a sophisticated “workbook” format and AI to amplify dream symbols in unexpected ways. Join us for a far-ranging conversation that examines John’s personal journey with dreams, the psyche’s reaction to “contact” with AI, and a dream of Jenny’s that grapples with the arrival of this new technology in the realm of the unconscious.  Books mentioned: Jeremy Taylor, The Wisdom of Your Dreams Jeremy Taylor, Dream Work: Techniques for Discovering the Creative Power in Dreams Robert A. Johnson, Inner Work      

In our latest episode, we explore the life and work of one of Carl Jung’s greatest students and collaborators, Marie-Louise von Franz. We examine von Franz's considerable contributions to Jungian psychology, particularly in the areas of alchemy, fairy tales, and dream interpretation. We analyze von Franz's birth chart and look at her synastry with Jung. Additionally, we take a brief look at von Franz's collaboration with Wolfgang Pauli—a relationship we will explore in depth in a future episode. We recommend several resources for further exploration of Von Franz's work: "The Fountain of the Love of Wisdom" edited by Emanuel Kennedy-Xypolitas: A collection of anecdotes and memories about Von Franz. "The Way of the Dream": A 9-hour documentary featuring Von Franz interpreting dreams. "Number and Time": Von Franz's exploration of number and its psychological significance. "The Valley of the Diamonds" by J. Gary Sparks: A guide to understanding "Number and Time". "C. G. Jung: His Myth in Our Time": Von Franz's biography of CG Jung. Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli And Carl Jung: by Arthur I. Miller.