Astrology & Synchronicity

When I first started studying astrology, I was still in my teens and had never heard the term synchronicity. I was simply curious about the deeper underpinnings of who I was and where I might be headed in my life. In those days, astrology software didn’t exist and I, who am math-challenged, spent hours struggling with the complicated algorithms just to draw up a single chart. Today, the astrology software I have on my phone and iPad do the calculations in seconds.

During my freshman year in college, I ran across Richard Wilhelm’s edition of The I Ching, a Chinese divination system that dates back thousands of years. It uses 64 hexagrams that are derived from the toss of coins. Carl Jung wrote the introduction and used the term synchronicity to explain why the system worked. I suddenly understood that synchronicity was the basis for astrology and every other divination system.

As Jung wrote in the introduction, whoever invented the I Ching believed the hexagram “was the exponent of the moment in which it was cast.” In other words, when you ask your question and toss the coins, the hexagram you receive is like a snapshot in time, making manifest the internal. In much the same way, in the moment when you drew your first breath, the stars and planets were at certain positions in the heavens and that pattern, your birth chart, is a snapshot in time – the blueprint of your potential.

“…synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance,” wrote Jung.

I was recently reminded of the connection between astrology and synchronicity when I looked at the calendar for this September. My latest astrology book, Unlocking the Secrets to  Scorpios is due to be published that month, but on September 17, Mercury – the planet that rules communication, writing, books – turns retrograde. Over the years, I’ve learned that a Mercury retro period isn’t a good time to make submissions, sign contracts – or release a book into the world. So I wrote the editor and asked for the exact pub date and explained about the Mercury retro.

He said the pub date is September 8, so we miss the retro by nine days. I erected a chart – essentially a natal chart for the book – for that date, at noon, in Salem, Mass, where the publisher is located. I chose noon because it’s the middle of the day. It’s likely the book will be shipped before then and shelved in bookstores on the 8^th. Now here’s the synchro. The ascendant or rising in a natal chart – the symbol to the left of that horizontal line that cuts the circle in half- is the point where you enter life. That symbol is for Scorpio. So, an astrology book about Scorpio will be entering its “life” when Scorpio is rising!

A skeptic might point out that Scorpio had a one in 12 chance of being on the horizon, so essentially this is simply a random coincidence. But if I had chosen, say, 1:00 p.m. as the time, the rising would be Sagittarius. If I’d chosen 7:00 a.m, the rising would be Virgo. But that isn’t what happened. Like I said, I selected noon because it’s the halfway point in the 24-hour day.

As Richard Tarnas noted in his phenomenal book, Cosmos & Psyche, Jung  didn’t regard the outer world as “merely a neutral background against which the human psyche pursued its isolated intrasubjective quest for meaning and purpose. Rather, all events, inner and outer, whether emanating from the human unconscious or from the larger matrix of the world, were recognized as sources of potential psychological and spiritual significance.” From this perspective, Tarnas said, “…all of nature supported and moved the human psyche towards a larger consciousness of purpose and meaning. Each moment in time possessed a certain tangible characters or quality which pervaded the various events taking place at that moment.”

So, whether you believe in astrology or not, there’s a curious synchronicity about the time I “randomly” chose for the birth time of the book’s release into the world. Scorpio is rising for a book all about Scorpios.