Animal Symbiosis as a Model for Approaching Difficult Astrological Aspects

In this series of posts so far, I have been exploring the use of astrological symbolism as a point of departure for a much deeper journey into the unconscious realms. In the previous post, I discussed how animal totems can be potent guides to this journey, using my own association of Mars with the wolf as illustration of this possibility. The wolf, who came to me in a dream during a transit of Mars to my natal Mercury-Mars square, has become a guide to understanding and becoming more conscious in relation to this difficult aspect in my chart. In this post, I want to continue this story more deeply into the lair of the wolf to see what else it has to teach us.

To continue the story from my book, The Seven Gates of Soul (pp 366-369):

"As I was moving back through the memories of my cyclical history, I was drawn to make note of a book I happened to be reading at the time of the accident in August, 2001. The book was entitled The Mind of the Raven. Why I felt compelled to note this particular book, I don’t know. I just trusted the fact that I did, and then moved on with the cyclical history. Often this is the way we begin to flesh out aspects of the resonant pattern that are inaccessible to our conscious mind. If something intuitively seems important, it probably is, at least within the subjective context of soul space. In any case, it turns out that I had bought the book on a trip to Arizona, when Mars was opposed my Mercury, one half cycle before I actually started reading it. Now my sense of resonance is aroused, since buying and reading the book are part of the same astrological cycle. In light of this information, I feel fairly certain I have stumbled onto an important clue that will take me more deeply into the area of soul space associated with this pattern.

It was also interesting to me to note how I bought this book, for it was an unusual process. Normally, when I buy a book, I either know what I am looking for, or I find something while browsing in an area of general interest, but this book caught my attention somehow out of the corner of my eye, as I was about to leave the store. I could not see the title, nor even the cover when I was pulled to walk over to it, but once I picked it up, I knew I had to read it. So I bought it – one of the few impulse buys I have ever made. Though it would not have occurred to me at the time, I can see now how this kind of peripheral vision is, in its own way, an antidote to the vulnerability I experience when I am broadsided, albeit in a very different way than through the assertive focus of the wolf.

As I discovered when I read this book, which is subtitled Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds, wolves and ravens have a long-standing symbiotic association. Ravens follow wolves, because at the end of the trail, they know they will likely find a fresh kill, of which they may be lucky enough to partake. But wolves also follow ravens, because ravens can see what wolves cannot - namely potential prey too far away to be seen on the ground. The ravens find food, and the wolves secure the food for themselves and the ravens, while keeping competitors away. Without the wolves, the ravens would often be last in the pecking order of those in line to eat, but without the ravens, the wolves would be less successful in finding food. It is a symbiotic arrangement between two radically different species, in which strengths and weaknesses complement and counterbalance each other.

Similarly, the astrological square between Mars and Mercury in my chart is also an arrangement between two radically different species, where the challenge is to find ways to counterbalance weaknesses and synergistically complement strengths in order to more effectively deal with whatever opportunities for learning and growth – such as the tendency to be broadsided – the square might attract in soul space. Could it be that this symbiotic relationship between wolves and ravens might somehow serve as a symbolic model for handling this challenge? Could it be that bringing peripheral vision together with an assertion of masculine energies associated with Mars would provide a more effective antidote to being broadsided than either resource could alone? This, at least, is what the symbolism suggests – something I did not consciously recognize, by the way, before I began this foray into the unconscious dimensions of soul space.