Counseling Insights, July 31, 2009

It has been said that “making a difference” is the measure of life success; e.g., our presence with others, involvement with work that fulfills us, catalyzing change … all focusing upon making a difference in the world.

This need not be historic in record or mega-proportioned in measure; making a difference can register in the exchange of a sentence, the sharing of a point of view. The point is that things are different after the interaction that includes us.

I had a 9th Grade English teacher whom I will never forget. He introduced me to grammar, to word balance and structures in text, and I have never ever forgotten these revelations that give power to communication. The fact that his teachings made such a difference because they were channeled into my needs and responses focused through the Leo Moon in the 3rd House … was the beginning of astrology making a difference in my life.

I’ll never forget [an interesting statement that seems always to accompany the moment of someone making a difference] when, as a hot-shot right out of Harvard and into a big, big job in Houston Texas (Business Manager of the Houston Grand Opera Association … without ever having seen an opera!), I thought I never could afford to be caught without an answer to a logistical management question. My learning process was frantic, omnivorous, and fraught with peril… to exceed my young age in a mature job!

One day, my boss, the General Director of the Association –Walter Herbert, a German conductor—came into my office, closed the door, and like a grandfather, smilingly said: “Noel, let me share an observation with you: you are an extremely intelligent young man, but please, please, do not be afraid to say, ‘I don’t know.’”

Well, if that didn’t plough into my Moon as well! I have never forgotten that key to poise, strength, and maturity the maestro gave me. –Then, 15 years later, when I had myself become a well-established opera singer, during an orchestral rehearsal lo-and-behold! with the same Maestro Herbert, on stage alone with the most demanding music swirling around me, I made a major mistake, and everything ground to a halt. Maestro smiled and called up from the orchestra pit, “How did THAT happen?” --I had no excuse; I walked forward and, with a smile I still wear as I write these words, I said, “Maestro, I don’t know.” --There was much love in that moment. He had made a difference long before, teaching me to know what I did not know. He too remembered.

I’ll never forget the day astrologer Robert Jansky [1932-1981] and I were talking deeply about Eclipses. [Jansky has/had written the only tract about Eclipses worth its salt; Interpreting the Eclipses.] He was summarizing: “Noel, with all my research, I feel that we just don’t know enough yet about all this, except for the fact that eclipses seem to emphasize the affairs of the House in which they occur, and that’s that!” --In the context of our long discussion, that was a mighty deduction; though simplified, it registered powerfully on the understanding scale. [Just look at all the anxiety among astrology students preceding every eclipse, and note how it all disappears immediately when there is no corroborative evidence for those fears.]

---So, we come to you and me working with our clients, filtering what we deduce and say through a whole clutch of personal “I’ll never forgets.”

I believe that the astrological consultation is a support group of two. Each of us is helping the other do an illuminated job: the astrologer as stimulus, the client as responder. Sometimes that process can appear dark and heavy, reflecting the realities of difficult development. The “I’ll never forgets” of events that shaped life behaviors and values can be oppressive indeed. --Sometimes that process can appear inspired as it reaches for the Moon, as it pleasantly says, “I’ve been so fortunate to have been on the right track.”

When we come to our pivotal deduction, our hopeful projection, our usually encouraging “take this away with you” statements, sometimes fashioned into an inspired set of words, we must realize we are fashioning a moment that can make, should make a difference. Let’s think about that.

(I ask you please, please to review the “Counseling Insights” essay, August 2001; “The Last Five Minutes” ; see archives immediately below)

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