Over the past 50 years, one of the most interesting areas of Astrology I ever studied had to do with the various “Ages of Life” and their planetary rulerships. It seems like life has specific chapters where we learn specific things, all of it serving our evolving sense of awareness. Today we study what rules various stages of our life.
I wrote this over a year ago for Celestial Vibes with the title The Stages and Ages of Humanity – Dasha Scenes in the Play of Life. I never published it here, so prepare to enjoy an area of astrology almost no one writes about, but which could very well have the clues as to why we go through what we go through when we go through it. We’ll begin with something Shakespeare wrote about the subject!
The Bard of Avon once famously wrote in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and each player has their entrances and exits.” What most do not know is the entire speech gives us clues about “the 7 Ages of Life.”
A human life has definite chapters. They begin in infancy, and each one closes as another one opens at crucial turning points in our lives. So what did William Shakespeare actually write about the chapters of life?
From As You Like It, Act II Scene VII Line 138, as delivered by “Melancholy Jaques:”
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
As a result of almost 50 years of observation, each time I hear the number 7 associated with anything, I immediately look for the associations with the Seven Sacred Planets. If there are 7 of anything, there’s likely a correlation with the planets. Some of the above correlations are clearly planetary, but I believe slightly off.
Yes, of course the first chapter of life would be ruled by the Moon, since we are utterly helpless and dependent on our family for life. We have no independent light of our own, and can only reflect our immediate surroundings.
The second chapter could naturally be assigned to Mercury, with its diversification, multiplication and coordination functions. That is the era of the elementary school child and our evolution into the prepubescent teen.
The third chapter above sounds very much like Venus, with images like the lover, the ballad, and the mistress, but the fourth chapter above sounds much more like Mars, diverging from the natural order which should be a Solar era, when we let our light shine. Of course, this could also be a “blind” to divert those not ready to know the full picture.
So Shakespeare apparently assigns the fourth chapter to Mars, the warrior, “sudden and quick in quarrel,” which certainly sounds like Mars! I even contemplated that this was the Solar era, since in Shakespeare’s time the King was expected to be an excellent warrior as well! However, that brings us to the fifth era.
The fifth chapter sounds a lot like Jupiter, the “wise justice” of “round belly.” This doesn’t describe Mars in the slightest, so it seems Shakespeare omitted the Sun. The sixth chapter sounds like Saturn, and the seventh chapter sounds like the end of the end. I suppose old age is like that. However….
As you know, I believe Saturn gives us strength and power in its own way so that we may persist as long as it takes to fulfill Dharma. With Saturn as our Friend and Spiritual Master, we cannot fail. Our body may age, but our Higher Self, our Atma-Buddhi-Manas “Soul Spirit” is always there to fulfill our purpose for being on Earth. Even when we are in the season of “the gray hair,” we can still shine our Light to our World.
Assuming that Shakespeare was on to something known to ancient Astrologers, Alchemists, and Esoteric Philosophers, it’s not hard to see that there are clear stages in a human life which seem to parallel the order of the planets from innermost to outermost, with the Sun standing in for the Earth. When I first discovered Astrology, this was one of the sub-branches which fascinated me. However, the question of how many years to assign to each perplexed me.
Planetary Correlations With Life Periods
I first wondered about assigning 7 years to each planetary era, beginning with the Moon. That would yield inner planet correlations through age 49, and even if you added Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, it would still only take us to 70. If you stopped at 49 and then mirrored the same pattern in reverse order, it would end at 98. I suppose 91-98 would be very Lunar! Still, if we are to believe the ancient texts, the human vehicle was designed to live to around 115-120 max, and with our advances in understanding, we are able to live longer than most other generations throughout history.
Then I discovered two extraordinary offerings in The Encyclopedia of Astrology. The first addressed this Shakespearean order, but gave each chapter different lengths. I do not know who determined the lengths. It offers us
Moon – Growth – 4 years (Birth to 4) – The mewling babe
Mercury – Education – 10 years (5-14) – The scholar
Venus – Emotion – 8 years (15-22) – The lover
Sun – Virility – 19 years (23-42) – The citizen
Mars – Ambition – 15 years (43-57) – The soldier
Jupiter – Reflection – 12 years (58-69) – The judge
Saturn – Resignation – 30 years (70-99) – slippers
The second listing is a very interesting set of correlations by the venerable 19th century British medical Doctor and Astrologer Sepharial, who at one point lived with Madame Blavatsky and helped found the Theosophical Society in England. His knowledge of the Ancient Wisdom is probably why he assigned a period to Pluto, even though it wasn’t discovered in his lifetime. In Sepharial’s listing, we find :
Moon -7 years - 0 to 7,
Mercury – 8 years – 8-15
Venus – 9 years – 16-24
Sun – 10 years – 25-34
Mars – 11 years – 35-45
Jupiter – 12 years – 46-57
Saturn – 13 years - 58-70
Uranus – 14 years – 71-84
Neptune – 15 years – 85-99
Pluto – 16 years – 100-115.
This makes much more sense in terms of a human life, as the periods tend to resemble the general evolution from infancy to young childhood, to adolescence into adulthood, with ambition, expansion, contraction, and individualization all featured from 35 to 85, which sounds about right to me! It is speculated that because each of these periods is dominated by a planetary influence, where that planet is in our charts and the aspects made between it and our other planets will indicate some of the qualities of that period.
That implies your Moon will show the earliest years of your life, and that is confirmed through traditional astrology. Our Mercury sign, house, and aspects theoretically indicate what we can expect in the second chapter of life, our Venus sign, house, and aspects show the quality of the third chapter of life, and so forth. In a general way, I see some very specific correlations between those periods and the planets in my chart associated with the periods.
There is an entire field of study in Vedic Astrology dedicated to Dashas, or planetary periods. There are at least 43 Dasha systems, and they involve assigning various lengths of time throughout life to various planetary rulers and subrulers,
including the North and South Nodes of the Moon, called Rahu and Ketu respectively. This is one of the areas where Eastern and Western Astrology could probably find common ground and help each other’s understanding of the larger field of the Ages of Life.
The Cycles of Life - The Stages of Life As We Age and Evolve Pt. 2
Yesterday we explored several venerable sources which opened up several approaches to the cycles of life, and what planet governs what period of our lives. Today we continue with what Dane Rudhyar had to say about the cycles of life and why we have specific challenges at specific stages throughout our existence on Earth.
The Seven Year Cycles
Along with investigating the systems we explored yesterday, including the possible subperiods within those systems, I also discovered another system, developed initially in a basic form by Dane Rudhyar, involving 7 year cycles. His work offered two evolutionary tracks; one for the “non-individualized person,” and one for the “individualizing person.” Without going too deeply into the subject, it might be said that the non-individualized person is dominated by the collective unconscious and its herd mentality compulsions and the second is identified with what it means to be truly an individual.
He offered that for those who are not individualized, there is a 70 year arc. The first 5 seven year cycles are expansive and involutionary, and the second 5 seven year cycles are evolutionary and about fulfilling our life. There are 5 levels we move through for our first 35 years, and then the same 5 levels become grounds for evolution as we mirror our first 35 years in the second 35 years.
We spend 7 years experiencing the “body level,” then move into 7 years of the “power” level. From 14-21 we experience the “psychological” level, from 21-28 the “social-cultural” level and from 28-35 the “individual personality” level. We then mirror the process, with 35-42 the declining “individual personality” level, 42-49 the declining “social cultural” level, and so on.
The 84-Year Cycle of Individualization
However, for those on a path to individualization, he offered an 84 year cycle, identified with the planet of spiritual individualization, Uranus! In that model, he offers the first 28 years are a product of our physical birth, and our second 28 years are a product of type of rebirth, that of individuality, since around 27-29 we experience both our first progressed Lunar Return and our first Saturn return, both highly significant events which allow us to feel differently, care differently, and claim our Saturnine power to transform from a youth to an adult.
In my own work, I have found the first 28 years are like “The Thesis, or Point of Life,” from 28-56 “The Antithesis, or Counterpoint of Life,” and 56-84 are “The Synthesis, or Renewal of Life.” I’ve also noted that the first 28 are about realizations, the second 28 are about applying those realizations, and the third 28 are about the skillful use of our wisdom based in how we’ve applied our realizations throughout our lives. And applying what we know from another venerable source, it could be speculated that our first 28 years mostly are about the material world, our second 28 years are about the social world, and the third 28 years are about the spiritual life.
Qualities of the 7 Year Periods Within the Larger 28 Year Periods
Over the years, I’ve also noted that each 28 year period naturally divides into 4 periods of 7 years each. Any time there are 4 of anything in play, there will be many correlations. One could be that 0-7 is the Winter of that 28 year period, 7-14 is the Springtime, 14-21 is the Summer of that period, and 21-28 is the Autumn of that period. The cycle repeats with 28-35 being the Winter of the second third of life, 35-42 being the Springtime of that period, 42-49 the Summer, and 49-56 the Autumn, and so forth.
In a similar vein, we could say that 0-7 is ruled by the East, the place of the rising Sun and new beginnings; 7-14 is ruled by the South, the place of sustainment and security; 14-21 is ruled by the West, the place of passages and endings; and 21-28 is ruled by the North, where we “give report” to our Higher Self, our God, our Master, or the Eternal. Then it repeats, where 28-35 is ruled by the East and new beginnings occur, 35-42 is ruled by the South and we find comfort and sustainment, 42-49 is ruled by the West and we confront important life endings, and 49-56 is ruled by the North, where we must confront the truth as we have experienced it throughout our lives at that point. The cycle would obviously repeat for 56-84.
Besides the seasonal and directional metaphors, we could also apply the four levels of human life, those being the Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual worlds. In that model, 0-7 is physical, 7-14 is emotional-social, 14-21 is individual-mental, and 21-28 is spiritual-aspirational, repeating the pattern with 28-35 having a material, physical and actional focus, 35-42 having more of a social-emotional focus, 42-49 having an intellectual and psychological focus, and 49-56 having a spiritual emphasis. This would obviously repeat for 56-84.
How each of these life periods works out on the different levels is totally dependent on how evolved we are, and what our various life energies are devoted to. In my work over the years, I have also developed an exact correlation between the planets and each year of each 7 year cycle which I’ll eventually put in a book on this subject. I’ve applied this in my counseling work, and find the planetary correlations reveal the qualities of each year of our lives, how each year relates to previous years, and what to do and when.
Until then, enjoy reflecting on the various ways of measuring the Ages of your Life, and how certain major shifts occurred every 7 years. These 7 year shifts moved your learning and awareness into a new field of action, feeling, and thought, leading you to higher realizations. Our lives are a continuum of evolving skills, feelings, and ideas, all leading us to the realization that we ARE Spiritual Beings having human experiences. Then we understand all challenges, all changes, and all successes serve our evolving consciousness to become the Wisdom we are to give to our world.
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