ASTROLOGY, HEALING and the SOUL

with Brian Clark & Melanie Reinhart

July 15-24, 2010 - BALI

The Venue is the Melati Cottages in Penestanan, Ubud. For more information on the workshop, the venue and the magical island of Bali go to www.heavenandearthworkshops.com or contact Evelyn Roberts at evelynroberts@earthlink.net

Finding skilful ways to meet our experience of suffering, on whatever level, is a central aspect of the human experience. In antiquity, wounding and healing were under the dominion of the gods, and not considered separately. Healing implied honouring the god, who speaks to us of the soul’s discontent. Disease or affliction may call us to a more contemplative life as our soul’s process engages with the symptom’s deeper meaning. Astrology provides a rich metaphoric language with which to articulate the meaning and symbolism of these experiences, and thus to accept and respect the energy embedded therein. This seminar aims to reconnect you with the transforming wisdom of the body and soul.

In antiquity wounding and healing were considered to be under the dominion of the gods. Neither could be separated from the other; the instrument of wounding was also the agent of healing, as disease and deity were merged in the ethos of the ancient world. Even today, the human mind regresses to connect sin, transgression and impiety with the experience of disease, whose origins remain mysterious and bewildering. Yet illness also reconnects us to a more authentic and imaginative life, shifting the course of our lives in a more reflective direction. Dis-ease is the agent that awakens the soul to a more contemplative life.

In a contemporary way of thinking, ‘divine diseases’ are the psychosomatic ills, our bodily complaints and symptoms that pronounce the soul’s discontent. And to hear the message we must be able to read the symptom, to listen to the intelligence embedded in it. Divination and healing were closely aligned in the ancient world, and the seer worked in tandem with the healer/doctor. If the basis of disease is considered divine, then healing involves understanding the spiritual process behind it. Astrology enables us to ‘see into’ our symptoms. For many people, physical suffering is a call which guides them away from an unreflective life towards a more meaningful and soulful pathway.

As astrologers we recognise the revelations of the soul through the images in the horoscope. However, soul also reveals itself through the poetry of our dreams. Both astrology and dreams are children of the night, and powerful allies at helping us understand the profound layers of the self. Honouring these deeper aspects of the self also ignites the healing process, wisdom known by the ancients who used dream incubation in their healing rituals. As part of the seminar Melanie and Brian will conduct an ongoing dream group to help facilitate the connection to the deeper layer of the soul.

This fusion of wound and healing, so visible in the mythic figure of Chiron and his heroic charges, is an archetypal reality that has moved and informed the astrological vocation of both Melanie and Brian. Using astrological symbols, images and metaphors, they will lead you on a healing journey, inviting you to participate with the soulful images that speak through your wounds, pains and illnesses and are revealed through dreams and the horoscope. Contact with these images promotes acceptance, which supports healing.

The program will weave together the following themes:

Fate and Disease
Soul and Body
Soul as the intermediary between Body and Spirit
Symptom and the Soul
Astrological patterns and illness
Reading symptoms and working with them
Temperament and the Elements
The Astrology of Well Being, including

The Houses of Health, the 6th – 12th House polarity of Soma and Psyche and the Ascendant of vitality
Planets, physical and psychological well-being
Health and the Moon
Chiron and the healing journey
Aspect patterns and wellness
Astrological correspondences to well-being
Transits, progressions and the timing of illness

Dreams and the horoscope
Dream incubation
Traditional healing practices
Medical mythmaking

Brian Clark is the co-founder of the Chiron Centre, a multi-disciplinary centre in Melbourne, Australia where he is one of the main tutors of a four year program in applied astrology. He has written numerous articles on psychology, mythology and astrology, a contributing author to Intimate Relationships (Llewellyn: 1991), author of The Sibling Constellation (Penguin: 1999) Celestial Tarot (U.S. Games, Inc. 2007), as well as a series of astrological student publications (Astro*Synthesis). His books have been translated into Japanese and French and articles have been translated into Italian, German, French, Spanish and Dutch. Brian also teaches mythology for the Nexus program, co teaches a course on Tarot and leads tours to the sacred sites of ancient Greece through Odyssey. He has his BA (Hons) and MA in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Melbourne. He has a private counselling practice utilising astrology from a psychological perspective.

Melanie Reinhart has been a professional astrologer since 1975. She was born in Zimbabwe, whose night skies inspired her vocation; she hold a BA degree in Music and Drama from the University of Cape Town. She is a prize-winning Diploma-holder of the Faculty of Astrological Studies, and also received the Charles Harvey award in 2004, for ‘exceptional service to astrology’. She has taught for many leading astrology schools in the UK and abroad, including the Centre for Psychological Astrology, the London School of Astrology, the Faculty of Astrological Studies, Stichting Achernar and Astro*Synthesis. Her individual practice serves a wide variety of clients in many countries, and she offers a programme of workshops and tutorials, based mainly in London. Additionally, Melanie is a popular speaker at conferences and astrology groups world-wide. Astrology books include: Chiron and the Healing Journey, Chiron, Saturn and the Centaurs, Incarnation, and a contribution to the anthology The Mars Quartet, all of which are translated into other languages.