Interview with Friedel

This is an extract of an interview that John Wadsworth conducted with Friedel Roggenbuck in 2006.

John W:  How would you describe your relationship to astrology?

Friedel:  My relationship to astrology is like trying to re-awaken the energies of the archetypes, which are connected with astrology. And I think for the first five years or so when I started with astrology I was very amazed about the power of all that, and I got very fascinated about the energetic language of the planets, the signs, the aspects and very early started to be very concerned about that, like which music goes for what planet, or how would the planets dress, or which types of weather is associated with which element and all that, so I was never that much interested in techniques that way but much more interested in finding the signature of the archetypes and finding ways of evoking the archetype, or speaking the archetype if you like.

John W: So, do you think astrodrama gives us access to another kind of knowledge than when you're interpreting someone's horoscope in a 1-2-1 session?

Friedel:  Yeah, because the work is very much more grounded in the body, in the feelings, in the senses, in the awareness of energies. And, and when I’m in one-to-one I try to evoke that too but it’s much more difficult, than with the energy field of the group and in groups I use music for the planets and the signs, so just having these different kinds of music will evoke so many pictures, images, feelings in the people that very often one doesn’t have to explain very much about what the planet means and I find this much more effective than describing in words what they have in their chart, and I could do this as well in a one-to-one thing, or with music through all of the planets, but somehow there’s much more magic where there’s more people.

John W:  How do you see your role as facilitator in this kind of work?

Friedel: Well, the primary role in this thing is that first of all I create a place of trust for everybody, so that everybody has the feeling it’s safe to do whatever comes in the moment and to get rid of a state of judging, judging others and judging oneself. You must sort of drop your own preconceptions about how it would feel to play someone else’s Mars or Sun or something, and that one is just becoming very open and let me see what happens and what sort of space I come into when I am someone else’s planet. And this is more important than anything else.

Interview Continues...Click Here