A House of Karma

In 1988, as Pluto was approaching the Imum Coeli (IC) cusp of my Fourth House, I left the Christian chaplaincy and a new age church position in the Pacific Northwest -- and crash-landed in the basement of a Chicago home. It was more than 30 years since I lived with a family -- the dysfunctional mess I grew up in.

College, seminary and chaplain dormitories were always transient homes. Parsonages were lonely outposts for an unmarried pastor's meditation, counseling, education and writing curriculum while Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were traversing the subjective or bottom half of the Zodiac.

When Neptune conjoined the Imum Coeli (1968-1969), I left my father's hometown religious (and political) philosophy for psychotherapy, Human Potential Movement seminars and pastoring an African-American Church. Neptune's transit of my Fourth House (1968-1985) coincided with its Sagittarius (1971-1985) removal of religious-philosophical walls and the introduction of Eastern religions.

When Uranus conjoined the IC, my attempt to establish a world religions and holistic counseling center in a Methodist church exploded in an institutional power struggle. As Uranus transited the Fourth House (1981-1988), I left the Christian Church, hospital chaplaincy and a hierarchical new age church for self-employed counseling and writing in an international community. Uranus in Sagittarius (1981-1988) was nurturing individual freedom and an Internet family.

"In the fourth house the person can and should reach the experience of center -- the center of his own global, total personality as well as the center of global humanity....The cusp of the fourth house is the point of deepest sustainment and most secure foundation for the building of anything that is to rise above the ground....

"...In such a center, wherever it is exactly located, the Hindu mystic and yogi felt and saw the presence of atman, the center of all reality....It is indeed in the symbolic Nadir -- which is also the Midnight point of the consciousness -- that the God-experience can be had. There dwells the immanent God, the God-in-the-depths" (The Astrological Houses by Dane Rudhyar).

The Imum Coeli or "bottom of the heavens" is the nadir of the zodiac, the midnight of the soul. As Neptune, Uranus and Pluto moved toward the Imum Coeli, toward spiritual death and rebirth, I penetrated ever more deeply into my self with meditation, counseling and seminars.

And came to embrace the "dark night of the soul" (St. John of the Cross), brooding in late night coffeehouses, away from daylight distractions. "Wherever Pluto is in the natal chart is where we are existentially alone. No family in the world can fill the gap. The unseen one is just that -- lord of the other world" (The Astrological Houses).

When Neptune conjoined the IC (1968, 1969), a Scorpio psychotherapist, who was chairperson of Chicago's Vedanta Society, introduced me to the atman terminology -- and his astrologer wife (a Cancer). They referred me to East-West psychology seminars in Chicago and California.

My Inner (or atman) quest was that of an outsider to a home and family, one who was passionate about removing any personal or social walls to the planetary spiritual home I was searching for. That Inner Vision, that sublime peace, comes from Pluto and Imum Coeli birthing pains.

Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. were karma yoga resources for learning to love one's enemies. They, holistic counseling workshops and Eastern religion seminars were a healing bridge away from the revolutionary violence of the 1960s -- to my father and the rest of humanity.

Transits to my IC are intensified by Scorpio which rules my Fourth House and its Sagittarius interception. IC transits also oppose my Tenth House grand stellium, including my Sun and Midheaven. During the 1990s, my Progressed Sun conjoined Pluto. After Neptune conjoined the IC, a major planet (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune or Pluto) would transit my Fourth House for the remainder of my life.

Unlike Uranus and Neptune, Pluto is unrelenting in dredging up unresolved pain from the murky depths of our psyche. When it conjoined the Imum Coeli in the 1990s, there was an explosive estrangement from my father and siblings who disagreed with my family history and religious-philosophical views. The Aquarius mother, who shared my feelings, died when Uranus transited the Fourth House.

The "anguish" of an IC transit is due to the periodic "exploration of the darkest recesses of the soul . . . a long night. The IC is the most mysterious place in the horoscope, holding the genetic line of the paternal and maternal inheritance. This inheritance needs to be claimed -- it can be physical, psychological, material or creative...a parent dies; one finds out a family secret; the search for 'Home' wherever that may be." (Dynasty: The Astrology of Family Origins by Erin Sullivan).

With Pluto, there was an obsession to break through old family wounds and the fear that my father would not like a son he was unfamiliar with. And a reclaiming of such ancestral roots as my father's Taurus (Earth Mother) and mother's Aquarius (individual freedom, humanitarian) characteristics.

Families (Fourth House), friends (Eleventh House), enemies (Twelfth house) are players or houses of karma (and dharma) in our "waking dreams", external projections of an internal dialogue. For many years, my Leo friend and I were in a body, mind and spirit relationship (Seventh House), supporting one another's journey.

In 1988, co-habitation intensified our growth away from lifelong co-dependent ties toward Self fulfillment in creative careers. We shared the joy and pain of our family and career (Tenth House) insights and illusions, removed childhood scripts and worked on the same magazine.

Her dark-paneled basement was a Pluto dungeon or monastery with water and sewer pipes, electrical conduits and heating ducts. During those years, the many house repairs reflected Pluto's healing my Fourth House infrastructure and her career movement away from old household scripts.

In addition to her daughter, other Scorpios in my extended family included a bookstore employer, African-American astrologer and psychotherapist colleague. They were catalysts for my Scorpio-ruled Fourth House growth, as were such Sagittarius friends as a holistic health nurse -- and Mark Twain.

As Pluto moved through Sagittarius, I became friends with Amir, a Pakistani Muslim in a global neighborhood of Chinese, Mexicans, Russians, Assyrians, African-Americans, Italians and Jews. As Amir shared the anguish of separation from his wife and children, I shared my own. We also discussed a global home and family the Internet and CNN TV were creating.

My Cancer Moon's Eleventh House concern for humanity's spiritual Home was enhanced by my Progressed Sun was in Cancer (1966-1996). Chiron in my Eleventh House Cancer, which conjuncts Pluto, is also a "rainbow bridge" (Chiron by Barbara Hand-Clow) from my karma (lessons) toward dharma (Self fulfillment).

After transiting the IC "midnight of the soul," planets rise toward the Medium Coeli (MC, "middle of the heavens" or Midheaven), the astrological noon. The Midheaven cusp of the 10th, career, House grows out of the IC (e.g., our global spiritual family is the major theme in my writing).

A Pluto IC/MC transit rebuilds what it destroys (e.g. my family) after grounding us in the atman. We may even say of our painful Self discovery, "On that glad night, / In secret, for no one saw me, / Nor did I look at anything, / With no other light or guide / Than the one that burned in my heart" (The Dark Night by St. John of the Cross).

See forthcoming issues for Part II -- The Yin and the Yang and Part III -- Changing Street Signs.

Brock Elk Horn does clairvoyant readings, astrology and holistic counseling that facilitates healing of mind, body and spirit. Telephone: (773) 338-3329. For more information, see the Chicago Pulse - Practitioners in this issue of TMA.

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