Using the Earth as a Planet in Traditional Astrology

Inspired by Human Design’s use of the Earth as a planet in its system, I started playing with incorporating it into traditional astrology. What I found was a revelation. My instinct is always to find more feminine ways of doing things, and I had already leaned heavily into lunar astrology, Venus, and asteroids that help feminine archetypal qualities. But the Earth holding its own signature in how I use astrology just made everything more balanced, rhythmic, and elegant.

While the Earth doesn’t show up in a traditional Tropical astrology chart (due to the geocentric model, with everything from the Earth’s view), it is still easy to identify, always directly opposite the Sun. The Sun’s zodiac sign shows where the Earth is being pulled by the Sun, but it you were to rise up above the solar system, you would see Earth orbiting in the opposite zodiac signs. At night, when turned toward the part of the zodiac we are orbiting, we see the sidereal stars and constellations of where we are.

The more I dive into the use of Earth, the more I find what its symbolism is and how we feel its signature within us. It’s our most somatically held planet. It’s literally what we are made of and so holds our body, our nervous system, our capacity for receiving and containing. It’s the true yin to the Sun’s yang, equally as weighted and important.

Where the Sun is more about our awareness and consciousness (the light through which we see things), the Earth is more about gnosis, the mysterious somatic intelligence we contain, often subconscious and instinctual, but no less important. When we give equal weight to the Sun and Earth and the polar signs they traverse (both in transit and in our own natal signature), we find a much deeper understanding of how we develop.

One of the humorous things I’ve started to witness is related to the saying ‘Do what I say, not what I do.’ How often does this ring true about ourselves and others? When we start to witness the way awareness tends to oppose our somatic instincts, it becomes apparent how productive it is to have a tension between awareness and behavior. In the opposition lives the real intelligence of development and greater sophistication in maturity.

IPP in Astrology

The more I have played with the Sun-Earth polar tension, the more I have started to see something really intriguing. My fascination with developmental psychology ran parallel to my father’s interest in this. Some DNA magic was at play without us even realizing. He, over a couple of decades, has developed a really elegant system called Integral Polarity Practice (IPP). It was inspired by studying with a Zen master who developed a system called Big Mind, where different voices are called upon within a person. This then fused with his study of developmental maturity models in psychology, and a system of his own started to form using voice dialogue with polar voices of increasing complexity and way of holding and working with them.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve felt some kind of overlap with how I use astrology, but it wasn’t until I started using the Sun-Earth polarity that it felt accurate to lean into my own little fusion of astrology and IPP. It’s not a 1:1 overlay as the zodiac is circular rather than ascending, the way the IPP polarities start out, but what are called the 12 Human World polarities do seem to have a lot of correlation. With my dad’s help, I retooled the Human World polarities of IPP and came up with polarities that work with this tension.

There is a lot more I could write about IPP, as well as how the below polar qualities were revised from it, but this will come soon in a book I’m working on. For now, the polarities are kept somewhat simple, with one side holding a yang Sun expression of a sign and an opposite yin Earth expression of the polar sign. I’m not going to get into the trenches until I’m more qualified to do so in working with these polarities in more complex and meditative/pschologically transformative ways. Nonetheless, I find that a foundational awareness and exploration of this is still a revelation and something that can transform how you are witnessing your growth each season and year.

Of course, your own Sun-Earth pole is one that is deeply personal and one that will fascinate you for a lifetime, but we all have every sign in us, and every year, the Sun and Earth traverse each of the 12 polarties for us to work with as they arise. Below is a little diagram to help envision what I’m talking about (I see the poles not curling but spiraling and the two sides in connection creating a DNA-looking structure over time and space). After the diagram, I will explore and briefly introduce each of the 12 polarities.

THE 12 POLARITIES