Accessing the Cosmos Within: Experiential Astrology

A re-print of Daniel Sowelu’s article in the Federation of Australian Astrologers Journal in December 2024

Astrology is one of the most articulate systems for understanding the human psyche and the relationship between our inner cycles and those of the cosmos. Its capacity to help you make sense of your experiences, offer perspective, insight and meaning to your life can support life’s most powerful challenges and bring hope in times of despair. To be grateful and humble in the face of this gift from the heavens is totally appropriate.

However, like any system, astrology has in weak points and its shadows. Traditional astrology leans towards detached observational insight. The same brilliant mental dissection of a chart can collude our culture’s penchant for disassociations; further divorcing from the body, our emotions and the deep feminine. While it is an exceptional body of knowledge, as many of us know, knowledge on its own won’t necessarily heal our inner schisms.

Experiential Astrology bridges this gap and is a powerful healing tool whose origins are a mystery but which opens the doors to the magic and archetypal potency inherent in our birthcharts. Its core practice can act as a pivot that can bring together the astrological, psychological, therapeutic and spiritual in ways that are embodied, practical, emotionally relevant and profoundly healing.

Experiential Astrology is perfect if you are curious about or have a leaning towards the healing dimensions of as-trology. It offers a depth and breadth that can revolutionise your insights, *offerings and even your whole practice. Whether or not you use Experiential Astrology with your clients, learning it and practicing it can be a profound form of professional development that will deepen and empower your understanding, your readings and writing, about every part of the birthchart.

In 1987, I was in the thick of my first Saturn Return, my fourth year of prac-tice as an astrologer, and two years into the therapy requirement of a Jungian analyst training. And, as much as I loved both fields, I was getting increasingly restless and frustrated by the excessively cerebral quality of each, at a time when much deeper emotions and trauma was awakening within me. Simultaneously I had been having a vague feeling that there was some pivotal practice that would allow me to unite both fields along with my need to open to more embodied inner work.

My restlessness provoked two major breakthroughs; I had my first experiences of primal therapy which was to become my core therapeutic practice and, I was introduced to a remarkable form of experiential astrology which completely revolutionised my way of thinking about and working with astrology. After starting to use both I knew I was stepping into a new realm of learning and development I had not thought possible, one that continues to this day.

What Is Experiential Astrology Then!?

Experiential astrology is an overriding term for anything that puts you more deeply in touch with any of the archetypes found in the birthchart. It can include visualisation style meditations, astro-counselling, astrodrama, sacred theatre or an astrological version of the Jungian based technique Voice Dialogue. These are all valid techniques that fall under the umbrella of Experiential Astrology.

However, there is an even more foundational practice whose origins are ancient, and which probably emerged at the same time as traditional astrology, in the form of the astrology wheel as a healing space. Using images of the twelve signs of the Zodiac and cards with the individual glyphs for the planets and/or asteroids, you lay the individuals birthchart out on the floor to create an astrological version of the medicine wheel. Like any sacred circle, this becomes a healing space, but in this case, one infused with the archetypal power reflected in every astrological symbol.

As you can imagine simply stepping into this sacred wheel, whether you are familiar with astrology or not, is a powerful, evocative and illuminating experience, let alone working with an individual archetype. My very first session helped me unravel some of the mysteries of my Mars/Pluto opposition in ways that completely altered my feeling of, and for, my Mars beyond anything I have read about his position, while Pluto gave me an incredibly deep experience of a sacred duty evolving over lifetimes. Clearly, I was onto something! (A big thanks to Sudhir Astro for unlocking this place for me!)

How Does It Work?

When laying out the Zodiac wheel, it become what Barbara Hand Clow calls a Chirotic portal, in which the person entering the wheel is invited more deeply into his or herself. Clients are encouraged to breathe consciously, to feel what is happening in their bodies. As they relax,* automatic and/or intuitive responses to the symbols may arise. As best as they can they are in-vited to temporarily suspend what they “know” about astrology or any part of the chart (as you can imagine, this can be dificult for some astrologers!).

Even if the client can only let go a lit-tle, focusing on the symbol of an individual planets or archetype will activate responses within themselves, whether feelings, physical reactions, memories, subtle body sensations, all of which will reflect the current status of their relationship to that part of self. And none of this is dependent on any knowledge or experience of astrology in the client!

This is a part of the “magic” of this process, as the archetype will show up in the person’s experience quite organically. It works on the basis that each planet and asteroid is a pre-existing part of self that lives in our physical, emotional and psychic bodies, whether conscious, subconscious or unconscious. The wheel unveils this truth, while offering a kind of psycho-feedback system. More deeply it gives us access to the underlying power of any archetype to be able to do valuable healing to disturbances and disconnects in the system.

Whatever arises is facilitated by the practitioner to whatever level that the client can go to at the time. Whether the client has come out of curiosity, the desire to mentally understand a part of their chart or, to work energetically and emotionally with blockages around any part of self, they will come away with some deeper insight into whichever part of their chart they chose to work with. Even using Voice Dialogue, a Jun-gian-based interviewing technique created by Drs Hal and Sidra Stone, to interact with the intelligence of an archetype can be a profoundly opening experiences.

For those who are ready for it emo-tionally and psychologically, the wheel can equally, organically open up old wounds, blockages and carried trauma, say in our Chiron positions for instance, to be brought to the surface. With the right facilitation, the person can release some of these distortions, which can then clear the way to having a deeper experience of the wisdom, profound love and healing potency at the core of Chiron within ourselves. (Archetypally, I consider Chiron, Hygeia and Hekate to be the patrons of experiential astrology!)

The above is an example of what I call Primal Astrology*, which is an area I have been pioneering in for the last 35 years. One of the beauties of Experiential Astrology is that anybody with an open mind, a willingness to explore themselves more deeply can benefit from entering the sacred circle, whatever their level of consciousness. You can use the Experiential Astrology to work directly with the outer planets, any of the malefic, the various Centaurs or the so-called dark goddesses. It will also prove to be an invaluable tool for building up knowledge and experience foundations for new astrological bodies as we stretch beyond Pluto.

Experiential Astrology has been integral in my own practice to the process of reclaiming the different faces of the sacred feminine in astrology. This has been another specialisation of mine, advocating for the necessity of reclaiming all the forms of the feminine, light and dark, in our trade. We need to reinstate their presence in our charts, to create more realistic balances between masculine and feminine and to reverse the masculine bias of Greco-Roman planet-only astrology. A big thanks goes to the inspirational Demetra George, to my first training group who pushed for the goddesses to be included in the experi-ential work and, to the lovely Robyn Lee who initiated me into the goddess wheelwork, with a profound and simul-taneous experience of the cosmic and the earthly aspects of the goddess Ceres!

(Obviously to be able to facilitate this territory requires intensive and multi-layered forms of training. The basic practices of experiential astrology can be learnt over a 12 month period, much of which can be done online. My apprentices are required to experience every archetype in the chart on three different occasions, on three different levels of depth, while swapping sessions with other apprentices and practising with models. Working on the Primal Astrology level requires more extensive, in-depth, live person to person develop-ment over 2 to 3 years, with a particular emphasis on working with your own inner material, while developing one’s capacity to hold space in this more challenging territory.)

A Tool of Great Versatility

In the session, the experiential astrology wheel can be used for connecting with natal, progressed and transiting positions, in relationship charts for both individuals and couples.

The same upwelling of archetypal power will support any other related practices that you choose to include in the wheel. This includes different meditations, past life work around the Moon’s Nodes, regression work around the in-utero journey, working with birth trauma reflected around the Ascendant. It also works brilliantly with other ac-tion based therapies, such as art and dance therapy, inner child work, psychodrama and archetypal therapy.

The same archetypal potency shines through when working with the wheel online through Zoom, whether in individual sessions, couples work or in groups. We had tremendous success with this format during the Covid years encing ourselves and our charts as the meeting point of the cosmos and the sacred earth.

Similarly, the wheel offers opportunities to work with the archetypes underlining any aspect of human endeavour. Conscious relationship and evolution work for instance can be well served by exploring experientially with pathways from Venus and Mars to Eros and Psyche, Juno and Jupiter.

Contemporary Tantric, Kundalini and Sacred Sexuality processes can be ener-gised by working with the Shiva Shakti archetypes including the Black Moon/ Durga, Hygeia/Lalita, the Lilith and Magdalene asteroids and their male counterparts in the form of Jupiter/ Ganesh, Pluto and the Shiva asteroid.

Its flexibility also extends cross-culturally. I have graduates who have used experiential astrology to specialise in Egyptian and Celtic archetypes in their practices, befitting their cultural and/or past life backgrounds.

Experiential Astrology Group Work

increasing number of the asteroids. This includes pioneering the re-emergence of the sacred feminine in astrology, including the so-called Dark Goddesses. We found that working with these goddesses using experiential astrology helps shatter the popular misconceptions driven by patriarchal and distorted mythology about these expressions of the deep sacred feminine.

The groupwork focus has included collaborative workshop in the men’s movement, with shamanic practitioners, with psycho-dramatists, spiritual midwives and sacred activists, all reflections of experiential astrology’s flexibility, adaptability and capacity for ongoing creativity. The mystical scholar and architect of Sacred Activism Andrew Harvey in a big fan of the work and we have worked collaboratively on Sacred Marriage, Shiva Shakti and Black Madonna workshops and retreats during his Australian tours.

What Does Experiential Astrology Offer Students and Practitioners of Traditional Astrology?

The practice of Experiential Astrology is a tremendous gift for our professional and personable development.

• EA can deepen your connection to any or every archetype within your birthchart.
• If you have struggled with your relationship with any part of your chart, the technique will help you address the challenge and working your way towards better integration and reclamation.
• You come to know each planet and asteroid in your physical, emotional and subtle bodies, which makes a differencein the quality of the energy transference between you and your clients, even when you’re doing readings.
• *The deeper you heal your relationship with any part of your chart, the more Shakti or sacred healing power can move through yourself and positively, powerfully you can impact your clients.
  EA can balance out the heady, left brained and excessively cerebral tendencies in traditional astrology. This includes improving cross-hemisphere openings and energising deeper pathways into our emotional intelligence whatever our gender.
• It allows you to actively work with the healing of difficult dynamics reflected in your clients charts, while giving them opportunities to experience their underlying gifts directly within themselves.
  Your clients get to come to their own knowing, intuitions and insights independently of you or any other astrologer.
• EA is a constant teacher through what happens in your own experiences as well as those of your clients or colleagues while in the wheel. Even after 35+ years I am still surprised by the expressions of each archetype that surface spontaneously, ones often beyond that of traditional interpretations.
• EA can profoundly change and revolutionise your practice whether you choose to incorporate its techniques or use them for professional development. It can be built into what you already do and stimulate a great deal of creativity and potential innovation.
• EA can bring you more fully alive to astrology, invigorate your practice and open you even more to its gifts and its magic!

Experiential Astrology: Reclaiming Astrology’s Healing Magic

Come join us for a real-life taste of experiential astrology at the International Conference on the Gold Coast in January. After some warmup exercises, you will be invited to step into the sacred astrology wheel as a group to initially explore your relationship with the ruler of astrology Uranus who has his own unique form of magic.

Participating is of course optional but don’t miss this opportunity to connect live with your own personal relationship to these archetypes.

After the break, will be honouring the feminine forms of magic by connecting to the healing goddess Hygeia through her asteroid position in your birthchart in the same large astrology wheel. Then I will be demonstrating some of the ways that Experiential Astrology can be used with clients, inviting models from our group.

Come with an open mind and a willingness to explore your own inner cosmos and its treasures. Let this meaningful and enjoyable experience be both enlivening and healing.

*Not to be confused with the US version of Primal Astrology, which is a shamanic, animal totem based practice.