I have been thinking about Carl Jung’s writings lately. Specifically, his ideas on individuation within his groundbreaking, “The Archetypes and The Collective Unconscious.” I collected a handful of passages that have heavily informed our astrological perspectives:

“…the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to hereditary.”[i]

Continued:

“It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents.”[ii]

The rationale:

“…we are confronted, at every new stage in the differentiation of consciousness to which civilization attains, with the task of finding a new interpretation appropriate to this stage, in order to connect the life of the past that still exists in us with the life of the present, which threatens to slip away.”[iii]

And:

“The hero’s main feat is to overcome the monster of darkness: it is the long-hoped-for and expected triumph of conscious over the unconscious. Day and light are synonyms for consciousness, night and dark for the unconscious.”[iv]

Ultimately:

“I use the term ‘Individuation’ to denote the process by which a person becomes a psychological ‘in-dividual,’ that is, a separate, indivisible entity or ‘whole.’ It is generally assumed that consciousness is the whole of the psychological individual. Consciousness can even be equated with the relation between the ego and the psychic contents.”[v]

And finally:

“How the harmonizing of conscious and unconscious data is to be undertaken cannot be indicated in the form of a recipe. It is an irrational life-process which expresses itself in definite symbols. It may be the task of the analyst to stand by this process with all the help he can give. In this case, knowledge of the symbols is indispensable, for it is in them that the union of the conscious and unconscious contents is consummated. Out of this union emerge new situations and new conscious attitudes. I have therefore called the union of opposites the ‘transcendent function.’”[vi]

This is a lot to process and much of it runs parallel with astrological theory. Obviously, individuation entails understanding our charts, which I believe inherently produces healing. An astrologer once wrote (and I wish I could find the book) that healing does not have to be complicated. Sometimes it is as simple as shining light on darkness. Becoming conscious to that which was reactive. Sometimes, that is enough to start integrating the energies.

With that said, the 4th house can be uniquely challenging because when big energies are present it often means that we encountered them before we were mature enough to understand them. To be explicit, it is the juxtaposition of a newborn baby being introduced to and raised by Saturn or Pluto. There is no way to overstate how huge this is because these are generational energies that shape entire civilizations and epochs. Yet, some of us were hit with them as soon as we entered the world. And when that is all you have known it becomes part of who you are. It is so close to our being that we do not notice being molded by it. It is the heredity underneath the surface. I think this is why some astrologers refer to the IC as an alternate Ascendant. While we may show everyone who we are through our 1st house, what they eventually discover is who we really are once they get to know us in the 4th.

So, what does that mean for us? I think it means that it is imperative to study the energies in our 4th house, especially those that align with the IC. To confront the archetypes as well as recognize their potentials within ourselves. There is a plethora of books available on this subject to help with this journey of awareness, but I offer these observations on a few as well:

• Mars – Violence or aggression. Anger and conflict.
• Saturn – Coldness and harshness. A lack of love. Control and strictness.
• Uranus – Disruption and chaos. Unpredictability and instability. Constant change.
• Neptune – Disenchantment and disillusionment. Lost or confused. Deceit and lies.
• Pluto – Intensity. Violations and abuses of power. Darkness and fear. Abuse and torture. 

I offer these harsh potentials because these manifestations occur so often that I have started to wonder if the biggest challenge for humanity is to learn how to be a family. To learn how to create a safe environment to nurture and raise children. We can stumble our way to some degree normalcy “secondarily” (as Jung suggests), but it is so much more effective to confront these hereditary archetypes directly. We inherited this stuff. And that is also why this challenge is so heavy for those of us who grew up with these energies. It is that serious. This problem is real because most of the world is unconscious. We have a responsibility to fix things. We can start by shining a light and accepting the responsibility of understanding these massive collective energies that caught us at our most vulnerable. Because individuation at this area of life has the potential to impact everything else.

It is the foundation.

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[i] C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Princeton University Press: 2nd Edition, 1981, p.42.

[ii] Ibid, p.43.

[iii] Ibid, p.157.

[iv] Ibid, p.167.

[v] Ibid, p.275.

[vi] Ibid, p.289.