What is Form?

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WHAT IS FORM?

Dane Rudhyar

Every important system of philosophy, metaphysics and esthetics has given to the word "form" its own definition; and of late the concept of form, structure or pattern has acquired a central importance in science, particularly among scientists who are discussing the basic philosophical meaning of the new ideas which have been the products of the great scientific revolution begun by Planck's Quantum Theory and Einstein's Theory of Relativity. In the preceding essays I have quoted from books of Lancelot L. Whyte (Accent on Form) and Donald H. Andrews (The Symphony of Life); and there are many other prominent scientist-philosophers who are now thinking along "holistic" rather than "atomistic" lines, and for whom the factor of form is perhaps the most important key to an understanding of the universe, of life and of man.

The traditional approach to astrology has been mainly in terms of "atomistic" concepts; that is to say, astrologers have been dealing with planets considered as isolated factors, each with a definite character - and the same is true of zodiacal signs and houses. Relationships are established between planets and signs, and between planets and planets (i.e., "aspects"); but these are relationships between entities which are essentially considered as separate and independent factors. The character of each entity is affected by its relationship with another entity, but it always remains what it is. When "progressions" and "transits" are studied, what is considered is the motion of each separate planet and the individual contacts which this planet makes with another planet, or with each separate angle of the chart. Every astrological entity is like a particle in the current view on the construction of an atom. Each planet stands by itself as a cosmic particle in the vast "atom" constituted by the solar system. For most astrologers each planet is an individual center from which radiates a definite type of energy which affects individual human beings in various ways according to the particular components of their birth-charts.

The holistic, or humanistic, type of astrology which I have been promoting approaches the universe, man, and the relationship between both in a basically different manner. It leaves behind much of traditional and "classical" astrology just as modern physics leaves behind the picture of the world derived from mechanistic, forceagainst-force concepts and Newtonian ideas. It sees the universe as a continuum of operative energies, space as a plenum rather than as an empty container within which isolated material bodies move about, and the solar system as an "organism" (in the broadest sense of the term) in which moving planets are simply focal points for the operation of "systemic" forces and functions represented or defined by their respective orbits.

Humanistic astrology also considers man as an organic whole having its individual cycle of conscious existence, from birth to death - a whole in which every part is related to and affects every other part. It also attempts to view a human being, not as an isolated individual, but as a component part of larger wholes - that is, of a family, a socio-cultural whole, mankind, and the planet Earth. All these larger wholes provide the individual person with his total environment; and we do not limit this environment merely to its physical appearance, for it includes as well at least psychic and mental levels of activity. An individual person can never be fully understood if not related to his total environment.

In studying any manifestation of life, or any cosmic system of organization, the essential factor is "form." By form, I mean here simply the particular arrangement of the parts which in their togetherness constitute an operative whole. Instead of the word, form, we can use almost interchangeably, structure, or pattern. "Pattern" is usually more closely associated with a two or three-dimensional visual arrangement of points, lines, and areas; so we can speak of the pattern constituted by the angular relationships of the planets within the two-dimensional circle of the commonly used astrological chart - i.e., the , "planetary pattern" of the chart. The term "form" has so many meanings at so many levels that it is often better to speak of "structure," in the abstract sense of the word. The structure of a thing is the way whatever it is made of is put together. It refers also to the manner in which all the component parts of the whole interact - that is, to the functional organization of the whole.

Form and structure refer not only to spatial arrangement, but also to dynamic processes in time: Musicians speak of the "Sonata form" or the "Fugue." These are forms in terms of a definitely structured sequence of musical events; for instance, the development of a theme, the successive "entries" in a fugue. Rhythm is form in time. In classical music a typical theme or melody was divided into a certain number of bars. In the Sonata form we hear first theme A, then theme B, in a related tonality; usually a development follows; theme B may reappear in the tonality of theme A, after which A is sounded again, and the whole movement usually ends in some sort of conclusion.

In music and as well in the universe and in all living organisms, we witness the principle of form guiding the sequential development of functional activities. The whole universe is like a symphony. Energy is released at every moment and at many levels of activity; but it is released according to law - i.e., according to a principle of order. A structuring or formative power is constantly at work everywhere and at all times. Humanistic astrology represents an organized attempt to understand and interpret at various levels the workings of this structuring power.

All astrologies and all sciences, as well as all philosophies worthy of the name, constitute such an attempt; but the methods used vary greatly. The atomistic approach concerns itself with the detailed analysis of outer events and symptoms - for which it compensates by the ambiguous because selective technique of statistics; the holistic approach tries to deal directly with form, that is, with the progressive unfoldment and disintegration of the structural interaction of the functional components of any organized whole which has a beginning and an end, and which passes through recognizable phases of growth, maturity and decay. The "holist" studies the dynamic transformation of an original set of potential relationships (in biology, the genes - in religious metaphysics, the creative Word - in astrology, the birth-chart). He deals directly with the innate original structure as a whole, and watches it being transformed moment after moment also as a whole. On the other hand, the atomist focuses his attention upon the precise behavior of the separate particles which he has analyzed more or less artificially (i.e., through standardized laboratory procedures) when these particles are subjected to equally standardized types of events.

Both approaches are, I believe, necessary; but it is most unfortunate that for several centuries our Western society and its intellectuals have almost one-pointedly adopted the analytical, event-oriented, behavioristic and statistical way of thinking. It has led to spectacular ''success" in terms of outer material achievements, but also to waste, destruction and perversion of human as well as natural resources and values. A fundamental reversal in the orientation of our society and of its collective official thinking is indeed necessary if our civilization is to avoid reaching the point of no return. If we have already reached it, then we should lay the seed-foundation for a new society and a transformed humanity astrologically associated with the Aquarian Age, the beginning of which is still in the future - I believe a century ahead. (1)

I do believe that mankind as a whole, and particularly our Western world - which includes European Russia - are at a time of fundamental decision: We must either accept an outlook on existence and a concept of social organization which is in many ways the opposite of the one implicitly accepted as valid by the "silent majority," or we will follow the quantitative and mechanistic trend of our modern technology - which controls our social, cultural and political systems of organization - to its inevitable end: Technocracy and Fascism on a very large scale. This second road can only lead, I believe, to the very same tragedy as befell the old Roman Empire.

The same situation exists in the field of astrology, and of course in many other specialized areas of study. Astrology is now highly "successful" in terms of its "Gross National Product" and its popular appeal - just as our Western society is. It could easily become set along quantitative, "atomistic, " statistical events-oriented lines, especially if it is academically and legally regulated and licensed. It could then be used for purposes of a dehumanizing character, somewhat as biology and genetics may be used. Fortunately it does not seem possible that it should ever become an "exact" and quantitative science, unless the image of man is mechanized in such a manner that man may be thought of as merely assemblage of interchangeable parts.

Man is a living, thinking, potentially selfdetermined whole. For Aristotle the wholeness of the man was his "soul" - and as well his (archetypal) "form." Humanistic, holistic astrology deals with this wholeness, which it certainly need not call "soul" - a very confusing term. It deals with the "form" of the individual person - provided that we do not mean by form merely the shape and outer appearance of the physical body. It deals with this form - I repeat what I stated in preceding essays - from an esthetical, not an ethical (good-bad) point of view. In that sense, astrology is art, rather than science; and moreover art with a purpose - not art for art's sake, but art for the sake of stimulating the actualization of still latent potentialities in a race, a culture or an individual person.

When science will learn to deal directly with form and is able to study, not analytically but holistically, the workings of the "formative Principle" within all existential wholes - be they microcosm or macrocosm - science too will take on something of the character of Art, in the broadest sense of the word. And may I quote again these words of Lancelot L. Whyte:

"Physics seeks to penetrate the music of the atomic spheres, biology the harmony of the organism, and neuropsychology the melody of thought, and, though they do not yet know it, these three sciences may be seeking to discover the same universal principle of elegance. The principle must be simple and must define the character of change in complex systems. . . . It must surely express a natural tendency toward simplicity pervading all realms, . . . a formative tendency, or tendency toward simplicity of form, order and regularity." Accent on Form - p.66-67.

Astrology's supreme contribution to human thinking and human search for order and simplicity is its ability to reduce all functional activities (physiological, vital-emotional, mental, behaviorial) to a few essential categories, each of which is symbolized by a planet. The picturing of an individual human being in a circular birthchart, including the cruciform lines of horizon and meridian and ten "planets" and related factors, is a triumph of simplicity and synthesis. It is a highly potent hieroglyph, a "magical formula," a mandala. Every potentiality or vital, emotional, mental, socio-cultural and metamorphic development is there, condensed and reduced to its essential outline and potency. But what is essential is the organization of these potentialities; it is their inter-relatedness, their interaction and interdependence. It is the "form" of the whole.

This form is; yet it also becomes. If one links all the planets of a birth-chart by intercrossing lines one obtains a geometrical pattern on the background of the twelve-fold sectioning of the circle. In a sense it is the "star" of the person's individuality - the original Word (or logos) of the individual, his "celestial Name." It is what the universe revealed of its creative intent at the moment when a set of universal potentialities became focused into the first inhalation of the newborn - his first opening to the Presence and Power of the universal Whole. What this first moment of individualized existence in an open environment conveyed is imprinted in the emerging person (which is more than a physiological organism with a specific parental heredity). It is indeed a "revelation." It is (to use a Medieval alchemical term popularized by Paracelsus), the "Signature" of the individual person.

This Signature is a form, a definite structure of potential development; but the contents which will fill this self-actualizing structure are only suggested by the birth-chart. They are absorbed by the structure from its psychic as well as social-cultural planetary and cosmic environment. Every child is born within an "ocean" of psychic and mental forces or human tendencies and memories, just as he is born within the biosphere and within a race and nation. The growing child and adolescent should "metabolize" and assimilate what this environment brings to him; but, alas, the environment nearly always forces psychomental and socio-cultural foodstuff into his unfolding psyche and mind. As a result the selfactualizing process turns negative. A state of tension, of unconscious conformism or impulsive rebellion arises which makes the harmonious development of the whole person very difficult if not impossible.

Yet the process of "becoming" - that is, the gradual transformation of the original "star of individuality" - goes on. The universe follows its cosmic rhythm; the planets move in their orbits regardless of what takes place in the biosphere and the collective Mind of planetary Man. The astrologer then speaks of transits and progressions or directions. All these astrological techniques refer to the constant transformations of the original Word; the "Word that was in the beginning" becomes a discourse - the pattern formed by the relationship between the natal planets changes its shape constantly, according to the syntax of the celestial language. Potentiality becomes actuality; but what is actualized are not "events," but rather "phases of growth," or we might say specific turning points in the individual's development.

The process of organic-personal unfoldment has a definite rhythm, but it is an unceasing process of change. What the astrologer notices and comments upon are the accented "beats" in the melody of change not the change itself. Events occur at these beat-points, because the continuum of change then reaches "critical states." We call these critical states "aspects," and give them names and specific characteristics.

These aspects, however, reveal their meaning in terms of the self-actualization process of individual unfoldment ONLY if they are interpreted as "phases" of the several cyclic processes which refer to the organic functions symbolized by the ten planets (Sun and Moon always included). In order to understand what such cyclic phases really signify we have to consider first of all how the principle of formation of aspects operates. It is probable that the concept of aspects was the result of the observation of change in the Moon's appearance during a soli-lunar month, i.e., from New Moon to New Moon. But sooner or later the empirical evidence was generalized and abstractized, and the theory of aspects was developed by geometrically inclined minds. Actually, as we shall see, the theory is two-fold; and in order to understand this two-foldness we have to think of "form," not only in spatial terms, but primarily "in terms of process in time, i.e., of cyclic "involution" and' 'evolution."

1) Birth Patterns for a New Humanity - D. Rudhyar, 1969.

Person Centered Astrology