The Doh Years

Consciousness is dependent upon its vehicle for expression and both are dependent upon life and energy for existence.’ Esoteric Astrology

In this article we are taking up the matter we touched upon lat month: the octave with reference to age.

The value of having this knowledge is that it encourages awareness of the kind of opportunities, which, at a certain times in our lives, consciousness is able to recognise and respond to.  It can also provide a context for the lost, stuck and difficult years.

In this article we are considering the ‘doh years’, which are those that commence on the following birthdays

0, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49

An experienced astrologer knows that all these birthday years coincide with astrological events of significance.

Of birth itself little needs be said other than that this is the prototypical experience for all the doh years: they are rebirths into another, qualitatively different phase of life. And each doh year rebirth, is inclusive of all the experience that has been attained in the previous octave or octaves. The first note of an octave determines the quality of what will unfold from it. Esoterically it is said that it is all there in the beginning.

The doh years themselves form an octave with 14-21 as the mi-fa interval years.

During his career, the astrologer Dane Rhudyar who was probably the first and certainly the most celebrated of the ‘transitional’ astrologers, talked much about the ‘point of self’, which is something akin to a hand on a clock. One with the Ascendant at birth, this point moves in the order of the houses to reach the IC at 7 years, the Descendant at 14 years, the MC at 21 years and returns to the Ascendant at 28 years, to start a new cycle.

This movement of the point of self corresponds to the 28-year cycle of Saturn and has its reflection in the 28-day lunar cycle. Both these planets are associated with form and the building of structures to accommodate consciousness.

At age of seven the dense physical and the etheric bodies of the child fuse.  It is the start of a new octave and new phase of life and a different quality of response.

At this age transiting Saturn will be in square aspect to its natal placement.

During this octave, which commences at age of seven, the child may well have a preview of the kind of work he will do with his physical capacity and quota of years and energy. This preview tends to occur around the age eight or nine.

At the age of fourteen the fused physical vehicle itself fuses with the astral vehicle. Another range of responses are accessible and another phase of life commences.

Around this age, transiting Saturn will be in opposition aspect to natal Saturn.

Rhudyar’s point of self reaches the Descendant and this ushers in adolescence and enhances awareness of self and other.

At the age of 21, the mental vehicle fuses with the two lower vehicles and the personality kit is now assembled.

Traditionally, twenty-one is viewed as the coming of age. The child becomes fully adult and responsible for self and another phase of life begins.

The point of self reaches the MC.

Transiting Saturn is now three quarters of the way through its first cycle and has covered 270 degrees of the ecliptic: 2+7 =9 which is the number of completion. The completion is of the personality vehicle.

Twenty-eight is the age associated with the Saturn return, but not so readily with the causal body that acts as the mediator between soul and personality.

Twenty eight is the age at which, the personality vehicle having been completed, a person comes of age spiritually, and begins to pay heed to where his life goals are going to take him. This is the kind of challenge that contributes to the building of the causal vehicle.

‘Being about my Father’s business’ is understood either as carrying on in the way that conditioning has encouraged or making changes that will safeguard authenticity.

Uranus, the agent of destiny, is now making a trine to its natal placement.

The astrologer who works with secondary progressions will know that the progressing Moon whose cycle is the same length as that of Saturn will have returned to its natal placement in preparation for a new cycle.

Rudhyar’s point of self returns to the Ascendant and a new cycle of life is ready to commence.

The years of the octave that begins at 28 are much concerned with the moving into a greater authenticity.  The consciousness of an individual has to recognise what it is not before it is able to understand what it is. Hence the discomfort of the years 32 -34. By this age a person whose individuality is well developed knows that he has not yet found a suitable expression for his creativity, and that all he has done up to that point has alerted him to that fact and enabled him to gain experience.

Age thirty-five is the doh note of an octave, the concern of which is creative expression. At thirty –five a new creative direction will open up and, if it is acknowledged and taken, the succeeding years of this octave will be concerned with integrating this activity into the lifestyle or, more progressively, structuring a new lifestyle around it.

The theme is one of fusion and again, the point of self is back on the IC.

The years of the octave that begins at thirty –five will be difficult if the new cannot sit comfortably with the old, nor creativity expression with material security, and yet the sense of having found a way forward should not be dimmed by these discomforts.

At age 42 individuality and creativity make a bid to get themselves onto a higher turn of the spiral.

Transiting Uranus is now in opposition to its natal placement, as is Saturn. The challenge is clear: make the changes that will permit a higher expression of what it is that was introduced at 35. The changes usually have to start with the perception of self, and then work from in the inside into outer expression.

If this challenge is accepted, in terms of creativity, the years of this octave will be rich and productive.

At 49 a new octave and a whole new set of octaves is ready to start. This is a rebirth in two respects: a new phase of life and a higher turn of the spiral.

The doh notes of this set, which will unfold, as a higher expression of the first set of octaves will be:

49, 56, 63, 70, 77, 84, 91

Suzanne Rough
The DK Foundation
November 2003