Ancient Tower Press

The Second Chakra: Extract from Tracking the Soul by Joe Landwehr

In anticipation of the first Tracking the Soul Workshop this Fall (October 12-18, 2012), Ancient Tower Press presents a series of extracts from the book that inspired this offering. The 6-day experiential workshop will integrate the exquisite spiritual psychology of the seven chakras with a personal, image-based approach to astrology called astropoetics.  All workshop participants will receive a free copy of Tracking the Soul (a $25 value).   We hope these book extracts will entice you; and, if you cannot join us, you can of course obtain your own copy direct from Ancient Tower Press.

The extract below is adapted from Chapter Two.

  

The second chakra is associated with sexuality, with the watery realm of feelings, and with instinctual behavior, desire, passion, and the pursuit of pleasure on every possible level.  It is the center of procreativity and creativity, attraction and manifestation.  It is where consciousness begins to assert itself with imagination, adaptability and resourcefulness.  A balanced second chakra will result in an overall sense of well-being, as well as free-flowing sensuality, emotions that are expressed easily in a balanced way, playfulness, creativity ingenuity, and spontaneity.  What is at stake in opening and freeing the second chakra is no less than the capacity to enjoy life.

The Root Chakra: Extract from Tracking the Soul by Joe Landwehr

 

In anticipation of the first Tracking the Soul Workshop this Fall (October 12-18, 2012), Ancient Tower Press presents a series of extracts from the book that inspired this offering. The 6-day experiential workshop will integrate the exquisite spiritual psychology of the seven chakras with a personal, image-based approach to astrology called astropoetics.  All workshop participants will receive a free copy of Tracking the Soul (a $25 value).   We hope these book extracts will entice you; and, if you cannot join us, you can of course obtain your own copy direct from Ancient Tower Press.

The extract below is adapted from Chapter One.

 The root chakra is the most fundamental level at which the fusion of Spirit and matter takes place, and the most basic resting place of consciousness within the human body.  At this level, Spirit infuses the body with the gift of life, and we depart on a quest to secure, explore, and extract a sense of meaning and purpose from this gift.  It is where the embodied life takes root, and where we begin to grow as embodied souls, reaching through our embodiment toward the Light.

Tracking the Soul: A Book Review

Ancient Tower Press is delighted to share with you this review by Mary Plumb which appeared in the Aug./ Sept. 2012 issue of The Mountain Astrologer. We highly recommend subscription to this well-respected magazine.

 

Tracking the Soul is the first volume in Joe Landwehr's Astropoetic Series.  It is the author's original work on understanding the spiritual life through astrological symbolism.  He cites "Yogi Bhajan, Swami Muktananda, Dane Rudyhar, and my grandfather" as his teachers.  Joe Landwehr utilizes the chakra system in his approach.  The author is well versed in the variations of chakra systems and their symbolic correspondences (e.g. colors, sounds), but he bases his approach on translations of Tantric texts, originally written in Sanskrit.  He offers an extensive discussion of each of the seven chakras and the less well-known "Hindu concept of the five koshas, or levels of penetration of Spirit into matter."

Landwehr describes the planets (their position within the birth chart by hemisphere, angularity, etc.) and their aspects as corresponding to the levels of consciousness associated with the seven chakras and the five koshas.  He gives case studies for each of the chakras and koshas, with charts and client stories.  This is complex, but he obviously has a deep grasp of the subject, is clear and confident in his analysis, and writes in contemporary psychological terms.  Along with his review of the chakra system, which goes back to yogic practitioners of 4,000 years ago, he refers to modern authors on the subject: Caroline Myss, Ray Grasse, Rosalyn Bruyere, Alice Bailey, and many others.

As mentioned, Landwehr works with a very detailed system: "In practice, one would look at the whole chart from the perspective of each chakra, and the interactions between chakras, as they are indicated astrologically by the most active of 35 potential derivative charts."  Although each chakra is discussed in a separate chapter, he summarizes the work in "The System Applied," which examines Maya Angelou's birth chart as it corresponds to the entire system.

Landwehr is an engaging writer. Tracking the Soul is both comprehensive and easy to read. He includes personal stories from his own life, which reflect his familiarity with the themes suggested by the chakras. Throughout the text, he makes his ideas accessible in the language of ordinary human experience.

Astrologers with an interest in yoga or subtle energies are the natural audience for this book. Landwehr is open-minded and writes to "facilitate an introspective journey." Although his system is quite specific, he ends the book with an invitation for us all to keep exploring how the chakra system may intertwine with an astrological chart. He views astrology as "a kaleidoscopic way of knowing" and a "language capable of mirroring complex realities."

Tracking the Soul is a distinctive addition to the work currently being offered by astrologers who are well versed in complex realities and are also able to write skillfully. I look forward to the next books in this series.    

Mary Plumb, Mountain Astrologer (issue #164)

 

More reviews of Tracking the Soul

 

In anticipation of the first Tracking the Soul Workshop this Fall (October 12-18, 2012), Ancient Tower Press is publishing a series of extracts from the book that inspired this offering. Subscribe here to be sure you don't miss the book extracts.

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ISBN-10: 097476261X

ISBN-13: 978-0974762616
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The Astro-Chakra System: Extract from Tracking the Soul by Joe Landwehr

In anticipation of the first Tracking the Soul Workshop this Fall (October 12-18, 2012), Ancient Tower Press presents a series of extracts from the book that inspired this offering. The 6-day experiential workshop will integrate the exquisite spiritual psychology of the seven chakras with a personal, image-based approach to astrology called astropoetics.  All workshop participants will receive a free copy of Tracking the Soul (a $25 value).   We hope these book extracts will entice you; and, if you cannot join us, you can of course obtain your own copy direct from Ancient Tower Press.

The extract below is adapted from the Introduction.

 

My understanding of the chakra system comes from both Yogi Bhajan and Swami Muktananda, with whom I studied intensively from 1971 – 1979.  This understanding necessarily differs from more traditional teachings through a consideration of this system within an astrological context, as well as through allowing my understanding of the system to percolate through a quarter century of life experience.

The Chakra System Revisited

The seven chakras are somewhat familiar to western seekers, having been part of our common vocabulary since the integration of eastern and western religious cultures in the late 1960s and 1970s.  The word, chakra means “circle,” “wheel of light,” or “vortex” and refers to a state of consciousness through which life energy, or prana, is processed and released into expression.  The chakras are not explicitly physical in nature, though each is associated with an endocrine gland and with a group of nerves called a plexus.   Each chakra also has its psychological correlates, which in turn determine the needs, desires, source of motivation, intention, and characteristic patterns of fear and resistance that can be associated with the prana or life energy that is channeled through it. 

My understanding of the chakra system is somewhat different than that which originally governed the yogic practitioners that developed it.  These practitioners envisioned the system as a hierarchical progression of evolutionary states that paralleled and in some ways depended upon the raising of kundalini energy up the spine from one chakra to the next.   Kundalini, sometimes referred to as shakti, was a reserve of psychic energy thought to rest at the base of the spine like a coiled serpent.  Various yogic practices were designed to arouse the kundalini, and draw it up the spine where it would open and activate higher centers of awareness.   Through the ongoing practice of kundalini yoga, coupled with an ascetic life based vows of chastity, minimal concern for material needs, and non-violence, the higher chakras could be opened on a more permanent basis, and serve as the energetic basis for a life of refined motivation and expression.

Astrology and Consciousness: Extract from Tracking the Soul by Joe Landwehr

 

 

In anticipation of the first Tracking the Soul Workshop this Fall (October 12-18, 2012), Ancient Tower Press presents a series of extracts from the book that inspired this offering. The 6-day experiential workshop will integrate the exquisite spiritual psychology of the seven chakras with a personal, image-based approach to astrology called astropoetics.  All workshop participants will receive a free copy of Tracking the Soul (a $25 value).   We hope these book extracts will entice you; and, if you cannot join us, you can of course obtain your own copy direct from Ancient Tower Press.

The extract below is adapted from the Preface and Introduction .

 
As beautiful and compelling as the birthchart is, it must be considered an abstract portrait of potentialities until the being whose actual life is mirrored by the birthchart enters into our consideration of it.  Everything astrological can be understood to function on multiple levels of possibility, and interpretation of a birthchart – according to the most common approach to astrology – is nothing more than educated speculation about possibilities.  The best astrologers speculate with ample input from the client about whom they are speculating, realizing that without the client, the birthchart would be nothing more than an elaborate algebraic equation. 

A generation ago, seminal astrologer Dane Rudhyar suggested that “astrology is fundamentally the algebra of life.  But its applications are as numerous as the types of life it coordinates, integrates, and to which it gives the significance of order.” (Astrology of Personality, p 18).  Although Rudhyar was speaking of a broad range of applications – including not just natal astrology, or the astrology of the individual – it is nonetheless a corollary of his statement that its application to a given soul depends upon the “type of life” that individual is living.  The type of life an individual lives, in turn, will be a function of the consciousness that individual brings to life, evidenced perhaps most clearly at each juncture, by the choices that she makes.  If this is so, then an understanding of these choices is necessarily a prerequisite to understanding any birthchart.

The choices that we make at the important junctures of any cycle will determine which of the many possible meanings for the astrological correlates to that cycle are most valid . . . One person with Saturn square the Sun will experience the Saturn-Sun cycle as a series of frustrating ordeals, perhaps like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing that rock up the hill, only to have it roll back down again.  Another person with the same natal aspect will more effectively rise to the occasion, and through the Saturn-Sun cycle gradually evolve a solid sense of increasing competence, commitment, integrity, and personal authority. 

One might argue – and some astrologers have – that astrological factors alone are sufficient to account for the difference.  I tend to believe that it is more fundamentally a matter of consciousness, and that consciousness is something that we bring to the birthchart, not something inherent within the chart itself. Unless we know how a given soul has responded to the symbolism through the choices made in relation to it, we simply cannot know what the symbolism means.