THE LIFE PROCESS AND THE WORLD. 7/13.

The 2nd house/Taurus, six months old until eighteen months old, physical-sensory reality, the physical world, the senses, to crawl and walk, attitudes towards the body, security, finances and property.

 

 

 

 

The senses are the essential link between the inner and outer worlds. Only through the senses do we transcend isolation and make connections to a larger sphere. Sensate experience is simultaneously physical, emotional and spiritual.

Anoeda Judith, Eastern Body Western Mind.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

The beginning of this stage is usually marked by starting to wean the child off breast milk, or formula, and to introduce solid food into his diet, exposing him to him to new tastes and textures in the process. This is vital to the childs healthy physical development as his body now requires a wider range of nutrients; especially iron.
Between six and nine months old the child begins to roll from his back to his front and to gesture with his arms to be picked up or carried. He can reach for a toy, and is soon putting it in his mouth, or passing it from hand to hand.
Between nine and twelve months of age he can sit unassisted and is likekely to be mobile i.e. bottom shuffling, rolling or crawling.
Sometime between one year and fifteen months he begins to stand unassisted for short periods of time. He may also cruise holding onto furniture, or walk without support.
By eighteen months there is a good chance he will be able to crawl upstairs and may be walking with hesitation. He begins to grasp crayons (palmar grip) and makes precise movements with his thumb and indexfinger to pick up crumbs or small objects (pincer grasp).

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

By six months of age, the amount of crying tends to tail off as the child increasingly uses his voice to attract attention.
Between six and nine months old he enjoys bathtime and recognises familiar routines such as bedtime.
Sometime between nine and twelve months he begins to string syllables together  creating tuneful babbling  e.g. dadada, he also understands some simple words such a bye-bye and no
Between the age of one year and fifteen months of age the child’s first words appear alongside his babbling. He understands simple instructions and understands his name.
By eighteen months old he communicates by vocalising and pointing, may possess a vocabulary of up to six words and responds to simple instructions.

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 

Erickson’s second stage is early childhood, the psychological crisis of which is, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, and extends from approximately two until four years old. Which the child works throughin in his relationship with his parents, and if mastered results in him acquiring  ‘Will’. Erikson, also identifies this stage of psychosocial development with a ‘sense of self’.

Anoeda Judith in her book, Eastern Body Western Mind, identifies the crisis of early childhood as separation vs attachment, leaving basic trust vs. mistrust to infancy. Acknowledging the childs growing physical independence and awareness of, self and other, good and bad, pleasure and pain, closeness and distance. About which she has this to say:

In this stage, these distinctions are felt rather than understood. At this point, the child is all need, sensation and desire.Needs want to be satisfied. Sensation gives Way to desire. Needs and desire mark the motivation for locomotion, seeing something, moving toward itand incorporating it (most often through the mouth). As language is not yet developed, the prime  means of communication is through emotion, which hopefully is responded to in a caring and meaningful way. This stage focuses on the formation of an emotional body which is mainly interested in self-gratification.

References:
Erik H. Erikson, Childhood and society.
Anoeda Judith, Eastern Body Western Mind.
A.T. Mann, Astrology and the Art of Healing.
Penny Tassoni, Children’s Play, Learning and Development.

 

THE LIFE PROCESS AND THE CHARIOT. 6/13.

as followsEach stage seeks to answer an

The 1st house/Aries, the Ascendant (Asc), birth until six months old, self assertion, people present at birth, the early family environment, the babe in arms, the right to be and to have, the basic personality.

Before l was born out of my mother generations guided me
-Walt Whitman

The poetic sentiment expressed by Walt Whitman, was given a more scientific foundation by the anthropologist Jean Liedloff, in her book The Continuum Concept. A definition of which can be found on the continuum-concept.org website.

According to Jean Liedloff, the continuum concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings – especially babies – require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution.

    

THE BIRTH MOMENT

Birth is never easy for the child. Dr. Samuel Reynolds identifies three important requirements that must be met for the birth to be completed without trauma, or tragedy. He calls them them the three P’s of labour, passenger, passage and power. The child (passenger), must be small enough to squeeze through the narrow birth passage, and both large and strong enough to endure the hard work of labour. His body will be subjected to the full force of his mother’s uterus, the single most powerful muscle in her body, and his, heart lungs and head will be subject to immense stress and pressure. His mother must also have sufficient muscle power to deliver him into the world. If she is incapable of delivering her child into the world, for whatever reason, medical intervention may be necessary. This might include the use of forceps, or caesarian section.

Labour can take as little as an hour from beginning to end. Although the average time for a first birth is fourteen hours and that for the second, or subsequent births is eight. All things being equal, and the delivery follows the course set by nature, the child’s condition should parallel that of his mother. If she is wide awake, he will be too. If she is groggy due to having been administered pain relief medication, he will receive the medication through the placnta, and will be a sleepy baby.

Along with the three P’s of labour mentioned above, Geraldine Lux Flanagan suggests we might add another: Psychology. Almost in passing she adds – “Certainly attitudes are involved in the progress of birth.”

Jean Liedloff and A.T. Mann explore and develop this aspect of the child’s development. Both, emphasising the fundamental importance of the birth moment and early environment on shaping his personality, attitudes and beliefs.

The earliest components of an infant’s psycho-biological make-up are those most formative of his lifelong outlook. What he feels before he can think is a powerful determinant of what kind kind of things he thinks when thought becomes possible.

-Jean Liedloff.

 

THE BIRTH ENVIRONMENT

All babies are good but can know it themselves only by reflection, by the way they are treated. There is no other way for a human being to feel about himself; all other kinds of feeling are unusable as a foundation  for well-being. Rightness is the basic feeling about self that is appropriate to the individuals of our species. Behaviour not conditioned by a sense of one’s own essential rightness will not be the behaviour for which we are evolved and therefore not only will waste millions of years of perfecting but also cannot be suited to anyof our relationships in the self or outside it.

-Jean Liedloff.

The Chariot represents the child’s abilty to assert himself, and the external influences which affect this process. During this stage of the life process the mother remains his primary relationship. If she meets his basic needs for nourishment, attention and comfort, consistently and without too much delay, he will develop an optimistic, hopeful and confident personality. He will come to trust, throughout his life, regardless of any evidence to the contrary that his immediate environment, and the people in it, will be supportive and encouraging.
If on the other hand, his mother is inconsistent or significantly delays meeting his basic needs he may develop a pessimistic, insecure personality, and a general mistrust of his right to be here, and to have what he needs to survive.

Other significant factors include the treatment of the child immediately after birth including the cutting of the umbilical cord – which if left in place would dry up and drop off naturally within a week or so, leaving the healed scar of his naval. The pain of circumcision.  The most significant facts of life are the attitudes of those assisting and and witnesing the birth, towards the child, boredom, indifference, jealousy, joy, anxiety, hate, concern, etc. The reaction of his mother, father and significant others to his gender, physical appearance, and size. The time spent in hospital and the child’s experience of the environment.

THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF LIFE

Reflexes are involuntary movements or actions. Some of which are innate and occur as part of the child’s normal activity. Others are responses to certain actions. Some reflexes occur only in specific periods of development, as follows:
The rooting reflex begins in the first few hours after delivery. Whe the child’s mouth is stroked or touched he will turn his head and open his mouth to follow and root in the direction of the stroking, helping him find his mother’s breast to begin feeding. This reflex lasts until the child is about four months old.
Erikson named the first (of his nine) stages of psychosocial development Trust vs. Mistrust, which he says, lasts from birth until approximately twelve to eighteen  months old. During which time the child’s primary relationship is with his mother. Erikson claims that if she meets her child’s needs for attention, affection, and nourishment, he will develop a healthy attitude of, trust, optimism, and confidence , in both himself and others. If he does not experience trust, he may develop insecurity, or pessimism.

The feeling appropriate to an infant in arms is his feelingof rightness or essential goodness. The only positive identity he can know being the animal he is, based on the premise he is right, good and welcome.

In effect, infants whose continuum needs are fulfilled during the early, in-arms stage grow up to have greater self-esteem and become more independent than those whose cries go unanswered for fear of “spoiling” them or making them too dependent.

References:
Erik Erikson, Childhood and Society.
Geraldine Lux Flanagan, The First Nine Months of LIfe.
Jean Liedloff, The Continuum Concept.
A.T. Mann, Astrology and The Art of Healing, Life Time Astrology, The Round Art.