Living Astrology with Jason Holley Mythic, Relational, Embodied Ways of Knowing
Astrodrama Retreat, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2022; Northwest Tasmanian old growth forest, 2023; John Singer Sargent, Chiron and Achilles, 1925; Ganymede and the Eagle (Zeus), Bertel Thorvaldsen, 1829; path to Cave of Mary Magdalene, Astrology and Love Retreat in Provence, 2023.
O Muse, sing of Hermes, the son of Zeus and Maia, lord of Cyllene and Arcadia rich in flocks, luck-bringing messenger of the immortals . . .
- Homeric Hymn to Hermes
The word Zodiac means a “Circle of Animals”. Astrology offers that each of us is an ecosystem — teeming with inner parts and beings all with their own experiences of life, mirrored by the planets and stars. It also reminds us that we humans are one animal among countless others, embedded in rich and intricate webs of relations with our ancestors, spirits, fellow creatures, lands, seas, skies. The symbols of astrology invite us to deepen our connection with all life.
The deep rhythms of stories and the cycles of planets and stars call us into a dance with the Circles of Animals inside and around us. Mythic, relational, and experiential approaches to astrology and myth empower us to respond to these calls. To listen deeply and patiently when the symbols speak. To embrace the instinctual and the imaginative. And to love. In Audre Lorde’s words, to make our own lives and the lives of our children richer and more possible.
About Jason Holley
Jason Holley has been a practicing astrologer for 35 years and a practicing psychotherapist (LPCC) for over 15 years. Jason grew up in astrology, through mothers and grandmothers stretching back to his great-great-grandmother, who was a tea leaf reader in West Virginia where he was born.
Jason’s work as an astrologer is relational and archetypal: how do we connect more with all our relations, both within ourselves and around us? He facilitates a living experience of astrology through experiential methods developed from long study and practice of mythological storytelling, archetypal psychology, psychodrama and action methods, meditation and ceremony, and ecopsychology and relational-somatic therapies.
Jason has been an invited speaker for most regional-national (US) and international astrological conferences and organizations (including NORWAC, ISAR, UAC, FAA-AUS, EAC, QAC, AFAN, Kepler College). He has led retreats and workshops in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, and throughout the US. He has been a faculty member of Southwestern College, a consciousness-oriented counseling and art therapy graduate school, for 15 years, teaching Psychology of Consciousness, Addictions, Life Development, and Human Sexuality. He is also faculty for Astrology University and the Center for Psychological Astrology - Mercury Internet School (CPA-MISPA) online, as well as the newly-established Center for Astrology, Myth, and Symbol (CAMS).
Jason is currently completing two books: Living in the Circle of Animals, an invitation to an ecological mode of astrology rooted in dream and myth; and Constellations of Meaning, a psychological exploration of the Greek, Roman, and Mesopotamian stories of the twelve zodiacal constellations.
The Hermes-Hestia Center
The Hermes-Hestia Center offers in-person and online workshops, webinars, immersive retreats, and mentorship programs taught by Jason and others in three primary areas:
Mythic Astrologies: immerses students in the mythic context of astrology and enables students to creatively recognize, engage, and work with myth and mythic figures in their own lives and the lives of others.
Relational Practice of Astrology: provides students an astrologically-grounded and psychologically-sophisticated relational model of consultative practice, including multiple modes of case conceptualization and ways of understanding and working with the interpersonal field as a locus of archetypal expression.
Experiential-Immersive Astrology: prepares students to facilitate living experiences of astrology for people in individual and group settings - including astrodrama and action methods, dreamwork, embodiment and movement, and working with symbol, image, art, and ritual.