Opposition: Not For Or Against

Will Parfitt

Ecology is defined as 'the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings,' and human ecology is the study of the interaction of people with their environment. If we consider that as personalities we are separate and if at the deepest spiritual level we are all one, then soul can be understood as the function that mediates between the oneness of the ultimate unity and the apparent disconnectedness of us as individual personalities. The soul is then truly ecological in the sense it is the link that makes ecology possible. Awareness of soul brings us back to our interconnectedness and inter-penetrability. If we hold this position in our lives, and particularly in our work with our clients, we can maintain an inclusive, soulful position and outlook in all our interactions.

Of course to do that is easier said than done. We all get caught up, through our subpersonalities, in emotional dramas, irrational mental fantasies and soul-less interactions. We become, in a sense, opposed within ourselves (there's the inner dialogue between the 'connected and good me' and the 'disconnected and bad me') and from ourselves, from the Self within us that holds our highest and deepest aspirations, that knows that nothing can truly be in opposition to the unfolding universe, however it may temporally appear.

What is opposition anyway? Some new age philosophers hold a dualistic view between the 'management' (a euphemism for some 'god'-like beings) who are always trying to make things 'good' and the 'opposition' who act against this life-affirming evolution and are working to make things 'bad'. What if we move away from such a position and take a more unifying, mystical perspective and consider that everything is just as it is, each person and event perfect in itself? From that viewpoint, we don't have to put some idea of 'destiny' 'fate' or even 'god' into it to say that things are meant to be, it's simply that things unfold as they unfold. And of course if there is no 'god' directing everything then it is highly likely there is no 'opposition' trying to spoil things either!

From this perspective, it isn't the job of an astrologer (or a psychotherapist) to make the world different, rather it is to make us aware of how the world is so we have increased choice about how we interact with it. If astrology can do anything about the state of the world, it is to help us come to that place of acceptance where what is, simply is. The aim of such a perspective is not to make us into passive observers, but to offer insight and connections that enable us to make clearer choices. At the deepest level this means to activate the Transpersonal (or 'Spiritual') Will as well as the personal will.

But what of the more technical meaning of 'opposition' as used in astrology? In my dictionary it defines opposition as 'the apparent position of two celestial objects that are directly opposite each other in the sky, especially when a superior planet is opposite the sun.' If we look at this from an inclusive, unified position (rather than a dualistic one where something opposed is somehow against what it opposes) it offers us an insight into the dynamic of synthesis. Rather than the opposing poles remaining separate and the best that can happen is to find a place somewhere between the two, somewhere that is neither one or the other (an 'either/or' state), from a synthesizing perspective we move to a different position where we include both poles in the apparent opposition (a 'both/and' state). If, for instance, the Sun and, say, Mars are in opposition, then we look for a way to bring these two forces together (perhaps through finding ways of activating a stronger sense of the Transpersonal Will) rather than holding them apart and trying to find some (imagined) middle ground.

The etymology of the word opposition is from the Latin opponere meaning 'set against.' If we set something against something else from the viewpoint of the personality there is conflict, but from a soul-centered perspective there is an opportunity for growth, particularly as the opposition highlights the conditions at play and offers as clearer perspective on the choices available. An opposition in astrology, so long as we don't get caught into some kind of defining, fatalistic position (which, despite denials of such, is all too easy,) enables us to have some clearer choices about how we view ourselves in the world, and our understanding of ourselves both regarding our personal history and ourselves as players in larger systems that ultimately include all sentient beings.

When working with clients this way, the important questions to ask ourselves are: where is our work remedial and where is our work proactive, and when is our approach fulfilling our role as seers who don't predict the future but help others to see what is happening now so they can make better life-affirming choices? Such questions help underpin our work with the understanding that what we do on an individual level subsequently affects the collective, too. What opposes us gives us the greatest opportunity for moving beyond such dualistic positions and centring ourselves from a soul rather than a personality perspective.

Some of you may know James Hillman and Michael Ventura's excellent book "We've Had One Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World's Getting Worse". What if someone wrote a similarly titled book about astrology – for a start they would have to increase the time scale and let's hope be inquisitive rather than dogmatic: 'We've had ten thousand years of astrology and is the world getting worse?' Both astrology and psychotherapy primarily focus on the energy of an individual and their place within their wider world: family, society, global systems. Through working with an individual we are implicitly engaging the wider field. So as we are ethically and morally working with planetary process through the individual, shouldn't we be seeing the world getting better?

But who says it is getting worse anyway? Why do we have to create opposition within the world when the underlying truth is that the world isn't getting better or worse, it is simply evolving. Without a doubt there are innumerable ways in which our life is so much better than it was for our ancestors, but if we are honest with ourselves there is also much room for improvement. Some people argue that in our modern world we have lost the connection that our ancestors had and in fact the world is worse for us than it was for them. That's getting caught up in the old dualistic mode again. Truth is, if we look deeper we see that the responsibility is not 'out there' but within ourselves. If we are, at a fundamental level, all one (or at the very least 'all on this journey together') then we each have to take individual responsibility for what we project into the world, what we see as 'in opposition', what we prefer to see as remote and not to do with us, not 'our fault.' Oppositional forces give us the greatest opportunity to take this responsibility and make out choices life-affirming, moving us towards rather than away from the unity of Self that underpins all. Opposition, in other words, is not 'for' or 'against' but an essential part of ecological awareness.

First published in the Conjunction 48, March 2010.


Will Parfitt is a UKCP registered psychotherapist and an experienced and innovative group leader. Trained in Psychosynthesis, he has more than forty years experience of working with psychospiritual development, and travels internationally to run courses on a variety of subjects including kabbalah and psychosynthesis. Will is author of several books including 'The Complete Guide to Kabbalah', 'The Something and Nothing of Death', 'Kabbalah:The Tree of Life' and 'Psychosynthesis: the Elements and Beyond.