Juliet Sharman-Burke
This volume offers new insights and a compassionate approach to our psychological inheritance. It
explores in depth the images we carry of our parents and our experience of the kind of relationship they
created with each other, which is also the kind of relationship we tend to create ourselves in adulthood.
Parents are patterns, and no amount of effort can eradicate these inherent patterns which are passed
down to us over generations. Rather than avoiding our roots, we must learn to understand, live with,
honour, and express them as creatively as possible.
Part One, Images of Mother and Father in the Natal Horoscope, presents material on planets in the 4th
and 10th houses as they reflect the individual's perceptions of the parents in the birth chart. Family
patterns associated with the planets are explored, as well as how the parental unconscious may affect
children and the hidden psychological dynamics of the family inheritance which drive all of us in
adulthood. Planets placed in the parental houses are carefully examined, not as a means of "blaming"
one's family background, but in terms of how they reflect the individual's own experience of and
feelings toward each parent, and how greater consciousness of these feelings and experiences can help
to break destructive patterns and release creative energy for the individual. Seminar participants
contribute their own experiences of planets in the parental houses, creating a lively interchange.
Part Two, Zodiac Myths and their Correlation with Parental Images, emphasises the enormous value of
looking at charts through mythic eyes. This seminar concentrates on the parental signatures in the
horoscope by exploring the meaning and ramifications of the zodiacal signs at the MC and the IC, and
the myths associated with those signs. The myths of the zodiac are told and discussed psychologically,
particularly in terms of how they reflect the images of the parents - their personalities and behaviour as seen through the eyes of the individual. Myths are invariably embedded in and disguised by personal
experience, and the discovery of the mythic backdrop underpinning the personal experience of the
parents can be enormously healing, not only for the individual but also for his or her actual relationship
with the parents. Group participation in the material fleshes out the archetypal images and gives direct
and immediate insight into how these mythic themes are enacted in individual lives.
Review by Mary Plumb - The Mountain Astrologer, December 96/January 1997
This volume is one of the first offerings from the newly formed Center for Psychological Astrology
Press. The books are edited transcripts of seminars given recently at the Center, which was founded in
London, in 1983 by Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas. The books of Greene, Sasportas, and other
current teachers at the Center - particularly Charles Harvey ( the current Co-Director with Greene),
Melanie Reinhart and Erin Sullivan - are well-known to American astrologers and this marks the first
time that their lecture material is available to a wider audience.
This is a very exciting development, particularly for those of us on this side of the pond, who have
yearned for a glimpse of what transpires at the well-known school. To any reader who may be
unfamiliar with their work, the CPA Press states that, "The volumes in the series are meant for serious
astrological students who wish to develop a greater knowledge of the links between astrology and
psychology in order to understand both the horoscope and the human being at a deeper and more
insightful level."
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Juliet Sharman-Burke is an analytic psychotherapist as well as an astrologer. This book holds a basic
premise the belief that one's individual destiny of problems are intricately linked with those of the
parents and that one's unique person can develop only as those family patterns are discovered and
faced.
Sharman-Burke believes that psychological concepts, theory, and archetypes need to be absorbed into
the psyche to have an effect and for change in an individual to begin to occur. I think this is a great
strength of this book. Having originated as a live seminar, there is an animated tone throughout, and the
author's rendering of mythic tales, as well as the vivid responses of those present, records a hint of this
process of assimilation and, indeed, includes the reader as well. I was touched by the stories here, as
well as visiting my own family inheritance yet again.
In Part 1, "Images of Mother and Father in the Natal Horoscope", she gets us in the mood by telling the
story of the bloody House of Atreus. Various acts of hubris, quarrels, madness, vengeance, and murder
follow the family until Orestes, the grandson of Atreus, finds himself in the provocative situation where
any act he takes promises dire consequences. But, act he must, and the Furies descend and begin their
torture. Athene, goddess of wisdom, eventually decides that he has suffered enough for the sins of the
family, grants him his sanity and frees his children from the curses which has been on his family for so
many generations.
The story is told as an example of the depth of the u unconscious family inheritance. Orestes, however,
begins to change the narrative when he fully faces his family curse. Here we have an intersection of
astrology and psychology: Sharman-Burke believes that we can help our clients extricate themselves a
bit from the u unconscious elements of the family story by helping them to see their lives in a larger
context. Like Bruno Bettelheim and many others, she believes that myth and fairy tale are fertile guides
for this endeavor.
Part 1 covers the MC/IC and 4th and 10th houses as indicators of parents. After briefly explaining what
seems to be her consistent use of the 4th cusp for father and 10th for mother, she places the Sun in
those houses, and begins to explore. How might the self-awareness and search for identity, symbolized
by the Sun, be tied to the respective parent and how would that manifest? She gives examples from her
own clients and her listeners give their own, often touching, impressions. The format continues with the
Moon and the other planets, all considered when placed in the 4th or 10th houses.
Part 2 is entitled "Zodical Myths and their Correlation with Parent Images." With a mention of Liz
Greene's Astrology of Fate, which she recommends to her audience, Sharman-Burke proceeds
confidently through the mythic landscape. She tells stories of each of the twelve signs, including the
origins of the constel