Autistic Child and the New Moon

 

March 11, 2005

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/mar11.html

 

Dear Eric:

 

Please can you help me? I am a mother of a four year old autistic child. I have been told by his teacher at school that the New Moon may be affecting him.

 

I am very interested in learning about this; is there anywhere I can go to get further details on this subject? He has been diagnosed now for two years with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It drives me mad at times...

 

Hoping you can help me to understand my son...

 

Wendy

 

 

Dear Wendy,

 

It is beyond question or doubt that the New Moon, the Full Moon and other more subtle moves by the Moon affect every living thing, including your son. And this has been a particularly emotionally tense week in a number of ways, mostly revealed by the Mars-Saturn opposition that we have been experiencing the past seven or eight days, and which peaked Monday.

 

As often happens, this week the planets are playing a symphony, not a solo, and Mars-Saturn is accompanied by a series of aspects that peaked Thursday morning with the Pisces New Moon. This last aspect turned out to be a relatively peaceful and supportive one, coming as it did in a trine to Saturn -- we could do a lot worse than Pisces New Moon trine Saturn, and not a lot better. However, even at the best of times, the New Moon can be intense, as it focuses a lot of energy in one direction and one point in the chart.

 

I do suggest you keep an astrological calendar handy and keep track of the major lunar phases. People in general, but in particular, people who are deeply connected to the unconscious realm -- such as those who suffer from autism and other situations that affect linguistic and cognitive regions of life -- will move in certain ways that you will be able to correspond to the motion of the Moon. This may not solve anything, but it will provide an occasional clue, and perhaps some advice about timing once you've observed the Moon over a few seasons.

 

Astrology may help in other ways as well. Yet it's important to remember that astrology does not provide cut and dried answers. We want it to -- and we need it to, but that's not its style. Astrology is circumspect and its insights come through intuition as much as they do through thought, and often they take time to sink in and have their effects.

 

I've cast your son's chart. I have never been involved in 'breaking the code' on a case of autism, but his chart offers a few clues. Imagine that he is a person with an overpowering sense of self-consciousness but no easy way to focus it. He feels so much, but his personality does not quite take the light he is emitting and arrange it into a pattern that he can focus on. I would suggest that any exercises, games or play involving recognition would be helpful. For example, if you take a collection of photos of an actor in different roles and make a game out of it, that could be helpful.

 

Looking at another aspect of the chart, I can see that he has a situation where knowing how to apply energy, how to apply and how to apply resistance, can become quite mixed up. I would suggest that any exercises that involve teaching him the differences between pushing, resisting and relaxing could be quite helpful. You could do these with toys, other physical objects, or physical exercises that involve his body, breath and movement. Keep this very basic.

 

He is incredibly physical, with Taurus so powerful in his chart, but he experiences his physical-ness primarily as emotion, and this is overwhelming. The emotional intensity seems to blot out his ability to think clearly. Language, the ability to resolve ideas with his mind, and to understand in tangible terms what is going on around him are quite challenging. But this does not reduce the intensity -- only increases his frustration. So he needs to gradually develop translation tools that help him integrate his experience with that of the world and the people around him. These are going to be intuitive tools that are based on feeling and sensing, rather than ideas.

 

I think relatively simple experiences involving the gratification of feeling understood will be genuinely helpful. He needs to know when you understand him, and he needs to know in clear terms. To really do this, you will need to tune in on an intuitive level, something I am sure you've been practicing quite a bit for the past four years.

 

Gradually, I think, he will orient himself on the world around him in more clear and accessible ways. But as much of that is going to come through his body and his physical feelings as it is through his mind and his perceptions.

 

Please let me know how he progresses. I will send you a copy of his natal chart privately.