Explore how planetary alignments mirror deep archetypal patterns in human life — things like love, power, rebellion, grief, creativity — and how those patterns tend to show up in emotions, relationships, big life chapters, and non-ordinary states like psychedelic-assisted therapy, Holotropic Breathwork, or intense dreams. Rooted in the work of Stanislav Grof and Richard Tarnas, Butler draws on insights from depth psychology, mythology, and research into non-ordinary states. He presents astrology as a kind of “timing map” for inner experiences, especially the charged, meaningful, or challenging passages where your psyche is trying to evolve.

What you can get from reading it

• Catalog of 45 planetary pairs and their manifestations across spirituality, nature, relationships, and the arts - serving as concrete descriptions of how different planetary combinations tend to show up in love, work, creativity, crisis, and awakening, so you can recognize your own patterns and those of the people around you.
• A clear, structured map of the major planetary archetypes (Jupiter expansion, Saturn limitation, Uranus disruption, Neptune mysticism, Pluto depth, etc.) and how they feel from the inside—psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually.
• A way to understand and work with intense inner experiences like psychedelic journeys, vivid dreams, and Holotropic Breathwork. By integrating depth psychology and research on altered states, the book helps you see these as meaningful initiations or lessons connected to archetypal energies, making them easier to process and learn from.
• A more nuanced relationship with astrology itself: less “this will happen to you,” more “here’s the range of energies in the field right now and how you might consciously collaborate with them.”
• Practical value for self-inquiry and creative work: you can use the archetypal patterns as lenses for journaling, therapy, art, or spiritual practice, deepening the meaning you draw from your own story.

Framed this way, astrology becomes a symbolic language for understanding the larger patterns moving through your life, giving you a way to feel more oriented, less alone, and more in dialogue with what’s unfolding.

About the author

Renn Butler is a longtime archetypal astrologer and Grof® Breathwork facilitator whose work grows directly out of decades of collaboration with the transpersonal psychology lineages of Stanislav Grof and Richard Tarnas. He brings over forty years of experience with dreams, non-ordinary states, and client sessions into the book, making his approach both deeply researched and grounded in real people’s inner journeys, not just theory.