The phrase “limiting your degrees of freedom” is used in the physical therapy world. It’s when a patient intentionally restricts their range of motion so they can master a movement without being overwhelmed by possibilities. When I first heard that phrase the other day I immediately thought of how that has a wider applicability to […] The post Limiting your degrees of freedom appeared first on Anita Ashland.| Anita Ashland
This Virgo season I find myself wanting to slow the game down, so to speak, because of the intensity of the energy these days, with plenty more to come (hello eclipses!). Therefore I’m focusing on the image of the Hermit, which is the tarot card associated with Virgo. This card also helps reminds us of […]| Anita Ashland
All of us as individuals, as well as a collective, suffer from a wounded feeling function. Per Robert A. Johnson, feeling is “the capacity to value or to give worth to something. People who have a finely differentiated feeling function bring grace and good feeling with them; one feels valuable in their presence (Johnson, The […]| Anita Ashland
Now seems as good a time as any to ponder the American psyche from a Jungian perspective. America was founded under a paradox: equality depends upon inequality. As historian Heather Cox Richardson says, “American began with a great paradox: the same men who came up with the radical idea of constructing a nation on the […] The post The Royal Road to America’s Psychic and Social Liberation appeared first on Anita Ashland.| Anita Ashland
Jung saw the heart as “the centre of wholenes” and believed it possessed its own intelligence. Ancient traditions located the mind within the heart, not the head. In Chinese the word for mind and heart is the same: xin. “The heart-mind is the seat of our emotions as well as the center of our rationality” […]| Anita Ashland
While playing pickleball early this morning I got distracted looking up at airplanes as they would disappear completely into the clouds shortly after takeoff. For some reason I found it intriguing that I could clearly hear the loud planes but not see a trace of them. This brought to mind our recent Full Moon in […]| Anita Ashland
I have another excuse to revisit Robert Macfarlane’s magnificient book, Is a River Alive?, thanks to the recent New Moon in the water sign of Cancer. The constant changing waters of rivers, and their sometimes serpentine path, is much like Cancer, ruled by the ever-changing Moon who follows a snake-like path through the sky every […] The post What’s your question for the river? appeared first on Anita Ashland.| Anita Ashland
“Daylighting” is a term used when buried streams and rivers are brought back to life in towns and cities. Here we are at the beginning of Cancer season, the water sign associated with the beginning of summer, making daylighting personal for us right now. I love to read books that tie in with the current […]| Anita Ashland
Our individuation, the process for becoming more and more undivided, happens whether we are aware of it or not. The process is never completed but is impossible to avoid. Murray Stein describes individuation as “an archetypal process with a goal.” Jung described this goal process as “telos,” or that which pulls us into the future. […]| Anita Ashland
The intersection of personality type and astrology always interests me (typestrology, if you will). So I was intrigued to discover that Dane Rudhyar describes the 12 zodiacal types in his book An Astrological Triptych. He posits that we have a dominant zodiacal type comparable to the Jungian psychological types. Our type has both a creative […] The post The art of letting things happen appeared first on Anita Ashland.| Anita Ashland
The information you receive during a consultation will help you connect you with your own inner wisdom and live more fully as yourself. Astrology is about much more than your sun sign. It can show you the themes of your life and the timing of when they unfold. W.H. Auden said we are lived by […]| Anita Ashland
Have you ever tried to imitate the influence of the Sun? That is what scientists in the Middle Ages tried to do through alchemy. They thought they could turn base metals into gold: They wanted to imitate the influence of the Sun, which was traditionally thought responsible, under God, for making all the gold that […]| Anita Ashland
Below is the link to my free monthly newsletter where I write about a few Jungian/Depth psychology books I've read in the last month. It's like an email book club. Come along if you'd like to participate in some Jungian bibliotherapy, from one reader to another:| Anita Ashland