Your Birth Chart Is a Newgrange
Your Birth Chart Is Your Very Own NewGrange
Last year, my wife and I visited Ireland. A dear friend—imagine Jupiter’s trust alive in someone who dialogues continually with the trees, the land, the moon, and words—escorted us to Newgrange and Knowth, those ancient neolithic passage tombs.
The passage tombs are huge mounds of earth surrounded by massive rocks with marks carved into them that are at least 5,000 years old. This is the birthplace of the Irish Triskele, the triple spiral.
Remarkably, our ancient ancestors built these passage tombs with a cruciform chamber inside their depths, a cross in which one arm is oriented to the solstices, and the other arm is oriented to the equinoxes.
The orientation is so precise, in fact, that the only day of the year when the Sun’s light reaches the deep Inner Chamber of this neolithic womb-tomb is on the winter solstice; a coniunctio of Solar and Earthly marking the moment of rebirth when the light begins to grow again.
Think of it… the only time the light reaches the depths of this sacred temenos is on the darkest day of the year.
It is, for me, a stunning symbol of the inevitability of rebirth within the human psyche or soul, and within the life of nature and cosmos.
Marian Dunlea, creator of BodyDreaming, speaks of Newgrange as a central metaphor for her practice of allowing the body-soul to orient outwards, resourcing itself in essential, if subtle, ways. It is a beautiful, embodied healing practice.
Now, imagine a birth chart (see below). The annual cycle of the solstices and equinoxes is clearly marked with the angles (on your chart, those are the darker lines forming a kind of cross).
When viewed as a symbol of the annual solar cycle, the horizontal axis represents the equinoxes (Spring on the left, Fall on the right), times of equal light and dark. And the vertical axis represents the solstices (Winter above, Summer below), times of most and least light, most and least dark.
When viewed as a symbol of the daily cycle, the horizontal axis represents the places of rising and setting (rising or AC on the left, setting or DC on the right). And the vertical axis represents the time of maximum light (high noon or MC above) and maximum dark (midnight or IC below).
These are enclosed within a circle — a womb-tomb containing the archetypal energies of your life in image.
In other words, your birth chart is a circular womb-tomb whose angles are cruciform chambers oriented to solstices and equinoxes, oriented to the relationship between earthen body and light of sun.
It’s Your Very Own Newgrange.
To me, the same innate wisdom in the human psyche that led to the building of Newgrange led to the design of the birth chart.
And I love playing with this ancient imagery as containing the same extraordinary paradox, found in the MC, the Midheaven, the upper portion of the vertical axis.
The MC, viewed from the annual cycle, symbolizes the winter solstice; the time of the year of the greatest darkness; the moment of rebirth. It points right to it.
And, the MC, viewed from the daily cycle, symbolizes high noon; the time of the day of greatest light.
This means that the the point that marks the moment of rebirth in the annual cycle (the winter solstice) is the point marking the time of greatest light in the daily cycle (noon day).
As with so much imagery in astrology and myth, the opposites are contained within the same image. How cool is that?!
The upper arm of the cruciform angles—the Midheaven or MC—touches the mysteries of the solstice in the human psyche at the same time that it touches the life-giving light of the noon day sun.
To me, it’s not about centering the solar—it’s about the relationship between solar and earthly; the need for life-giving matter and darkness to contain the energies of the solar light for newness to unfold, even as loss ensues.
Viewed this way, your birth chart is Your Very Own Newgrange.
Which means that your MC is Your Very Own window box, precisely oriented to the moment of rebirth at the winter’s solstice of your life-cycles.
And, that means that your IC is Your Very Own Inner Chamber, place of gestating life, where the light of life can reach only on the darkest day of the year.
Holding this image of chart-as-Newgrange, you might visit your chart and feel into your own soul-secrets about the nature of rebirth and renewal in Your Very Own life. Beautiful insights await :)
The birth chart as Your Very Own Newgrange.