Yesterday morning I got up early to let my Facebook friends know I was putting up my new Astro4Business Week forecast. That’s when I realized I was 14 hours late for my readers in Australia.
A famous photo of Earth from Apollo 17 (Blue Marble) originally had the south pole at the top; however, it was turned upside-down to fit the traditional perspective. (Source:Wikipedia)
As my world enlarges to include friends and clients from both the northern and southern hemispheres, some basic pieces of my worldview and my astrological knowledge have to be questioned and redefined. A few years back I was speaking to a business colleague who runs a consulting practice in Australia. She asked me, what makes you sure that your country is in the North? In other words, why do I speak of the U.S. as “above” the equator rather than Australia? That really stopped me.
Of course she is right. In a universe that spreads in all directions, exploding from a point of infinitely dense matter and creating space as it progresses, how can one direction be called above, or north, and another below, or south. On a round sphere like earth in a directionless space, who names what is up and what is down?
A cartographer could answer this for us, but why is the so-called Northern Hemisphere at the top of all maps? Couldn’t equally valid maps be drawn with the so-called Southern Hemisphere on top? Maybe I’m belaboring a point here, but if we’ve been trained with such a fundamentally biased world-view, wouldn’t this affect all of our business dealings too?
As I write the weekly Astro4Business forecast I’ve been thinking about all of my readers from all over the world, including New Zealand, Australia, and Brazil. I want to explain the meanings of the current positions of all of the planets so we can use this knowledge to guide our businesses.
But when I was learning astrology, the various signs were explained as reflective of the seasons of the year. So Aries, beginning March 21, was described as creative, initiatory, energetic like its sister season, spring. And Leo was described as hot, fiery, and unwavering like the summer months of July and August. But in Australia, Aries is the beginning of autumn, and Leo is in the dead of winter. It feels like my astrological knowledge is doing headstands.
Southern hemisphere from above the South Pole. (Source:Wikipedia)
A little internet research reveals why astrology has been cast in such a northern-centric way:
There is no doubt, historically speaking, that astrology is predicated on a northern-hemisphere-centric body of knowledge. The cultures from which astrology was born—Babylonian, Egyptian, Hindu, Greek, Chinese, Tibetan—all derive from north of the equator. Thus, it isn’t surprisingly that traditional astrological symbolism is colored strongly by the progression of the seasons as lived in the northern hemisphere. (Cite: http://astrobarry.com/2003/dec1503.php)
Although there is a movement in Australia to reverse the signs to more closely correspond to the Australian seasons, even most Southern Hemisphere astrologers accept the northern-centric meanings. They take the pure energy of the signs and adjust the meanings to their own seasons. So Aries in the Southern Hemisphere, which corresponds to the beginning of autumn, becomes the energy to transition from the summer months, the energy needed to collect the harvest, the red autumn trees. And the steady heat of Leo becomes the hearth fire in the cold of winter. Just like these astrologers, I too need to adjust my thinking about the signs to a more pure and essential understanding of the cycles.
How does this apply to business? As our reach becomes more global, so do our relationships. I have personally made many mistakes from my unconsciously American organizational viewpoint while working with Indian businesses. A Russian friend who works in London banking laughingly recounts her first few months of faux pas as she adjusted to the formal British culture. Truthfully, even moving from the northeast USA to the southeast can cause missteps every day until you absorb the southern culture.
And yet we can’t just avoid the issue, the economy is going global. We’ve got to break through, break free from the conditioning we picked up from TV, education, government, and our families. Or stay home. I guess we could just settle into a little town and interact only with those like us. Only those that don’t make us question which way is up. That would be a small world, indeed!
I’d love to hear from you! Any anecdotes from your attempts at going global?
#1 by Lynn K. on August 13th, 2009
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Hi Ellen, A week of stay-cation is finally giving me some time to really read your site. The writing and thinking is just superb. I can feel all your years of careful study (and not just in astrology!) in play here.
I find this idea of cultural competence to be an important front-and-center area in every arena in our lives. As a public health educator at a major research university, I have the opportunity to learn so much about students’ backgrounds and where my/our U.S. perspective is limited and arrogant. I’ve found that my own willingness to appear foolish or naive, to ask questions and to be genuinely interested has allowed me to grow and learn. I appreciate the “geo-narcissism” (my made up term) that you’re speaking of in terms of physical orientation, astrology, and the seasons: shining the light on another area that is so fundamental to my perspective I’ve never even questioned it! I have a friend in Australia who I speak with once a month (another mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher). I’ll mention this to her (and your site) next time we speak.
Gratitude and love,
Lynn
#2 by Lynn K. on August 13th, 2009
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Hi again, I just saw your question about anecdotes and remembered this: Several years ago when I was still in school, I met a Tibetan woman in my counseling psych class. We were part of a small group that met weekly and over time got to know each other. She’d left her husband and two children in Dharamsala to come to UMass for 2 years for her M.A. in guidance counseling. The school she worked at harbored children leaving Tibet, and it was more like a foster home for these suddenly orphaned children. She was the epitome of dharma and seva.
One day we were sharing about our families and I told her that I’d been with Annie for 15 years (or about that, at the time). She wanted to know more and we talked about being gay. She was quite open and curious and it was all new to her. After some thought she said that she didn’t think there were any gay people in Tibet. I replied that that was unlikely, but that maybe–given the more important issues her culture was dealing with–it wasn’t at the top of the list! The next week when we met, she couldn’t wait to talk to me. Yes, she said, she was certain that there were gay people in Tibet, and she was looking forward to talking to her husband and friends in Dharamsala about this idea.
I have no way of knowing if this is an isolated experience or does express a deeper culture perspective, but I was struck with the “luxury” of being a US citizen, the political range that is available here, and how a country and people under siege might no’t have a lot of energy leftover to contemplate more social issues.
#3 by Ellen Longo on August 17th, 2009
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Thanks, Lynn. Yes, the willingness to ask questions, even if I betray my own limited cultural exposure when I do, is key. I love the term, geo-narcissism. It’s perfect!