"We do not live just to survive; we are here to change ourselves." This is the premise that guides the American astrologer Jeffrey Wolf Green, and is also the basis of his significant contribution to the study of astrology and the human soul. During the last twenty years Green gave more than 16,000 astrological consultations, wrote four books, and during the last two years he trained part of the next generation that will increase the spreading of the "Astrology of the Evolution of the Soul."
Green uses astrology as an key tool in understanding life processes on the personal level and the collective level. Astrology ceases to be a tool that reflects dry personality characteristics that rule whether one has luck in life, or alternatively a tool used for forecasts only. From this standpoint, astrology exposes (but does not determine) the existence of cause and effect. That is, every event that takes place is not accidental but fulfills a role in the evolution of the soul from one lifetime to the next. From this we deduce that whatever is described in an astrological chart is a dynamic, rather than a static existence, or in other words, an existence that can be always improved and developed. Through chart analysis according to this way of seeing it is possible to understand the reasons that led each soul to the present, and thus receive a clearer state of conditions that enables each one to choose better in relation to a given situation. Jeffrey Green was also influenced by the work of the wonderful astrologer Dane Rudhyar, a pioneer who gave astrology a philosophical, spiritual and evolutional character as early as the thirties. The use of the astrological tool during those times was one-dimensional and based on narrow, binding definitions. Green continued with Rudhyar's spirit, and received through dreams all this knowledge for developing a practical method that identifies more deeply the evolutional process of the soul via astrology. These days, learning centers for astrology and the evolution of the soul are opened in Europe, in the United States and in Israel (in India shortly). These centers are run by Green and his students, usually in a modest, intimate atmosphere, and mostly in private houses. The idea is to allow flexibility in the spreading of the syllabus, so as to be able to comply with every initiative everywhere in the world.
Steven Forest, an American Astrologer himself, said about Green: "Jeffrey received many insights through dreams, material that presumably was received intuitively. Mystics and visionaries are always a bit dangerous, since they do not always verify and balance all their saying as science can verify and balance itself. Nonetheless, intuitions can be confirmed; you can check whether they are convincing, and one of the things for which I respect Jeffrey very much is that he does that. Many people claimed to have received messages from God, and led many into trouble because of this. Jeffrey is not one of them. Where would we go without mystics? Where would the soul of our creations disappear? Everything would turn into dry figures."

Black Sheep

The uniqueness of Green is apparent at first sight. In his outer appearance he looks like a funny hybrid between a gentle Indian woman and a wild animal. He was born in Hollywood, California, the eldest son in a poor family of five. His father was an artist who had to give up his art to support his young family after his return from the war against the Japanese in the forties. Jeffrey was exposed to severe abuse, psychological and physical, from his mother. It became so bad that he and his brother were transferred to an orphanage. Later they were brought back to the family. "I was the black sheep," he tells. "My parents didn't care for me." He spent most of his school days at sea and used to surf a lot. A strong sense of alienation accompanied him most of the time, and he became an alcoholic. One fatal night when he was drunk he crushed with his car into someone else's car and the two started to exchange blows. "He decided to be tough, and I almost killed him," he says. It was during the Vietnam War, so he was presented with two options: to go to jail or enlist into the fleet. He decided to enlist. In Vietnam, Green, an 18 year-old guy, was exposed to life at its ugliest, and went into a state of continuous trauma. "Life made no sense to me; even the idea of God made no sense. I had a very close friend during the war. One day we were bombed and he was reading the Bible when this happened. He got a direct hit, and all that was left when I returned was pieces of flesh and a blood covered Bible. I too had the shared illusion that God is perfect, and did not understand how he allowed such a thing to happen, especially when someone was reading his book… At the age of eighteen this is completely senseless. And so I erased God from my life."
He survived emotionally the whole period through drugs. One day, a month before his evacuation from Vietnam, he was looking for drugs in a nearby village. He reached the foot of a hill that had steps climbing to the top. At the top of the hill he found a Buddhist monastery. One of the monks approached him, but they could not communicate because of the language barrier. Still, he stayed near the monk for a stretch of eighteen hours. According to him the monk held his consciousness and hypnotized him. The results of this encounter were revealed only when he returned to the United State. He had to complete six more months to finish his army service. "I had no clue how I would go through this emotionally; I was exhausted," he says. But surprisingly, because of his typing skills, he was posted for office work, and his commander supported him and allowed him to sleep at home. "By accident," he rented a house adjacent to the ashram of the Yogi Yogananda, who was between the first to bring Yoga to the United States at the beginning of the century, and so he found himself every evening going to spend hours in the Ashram, and according to his words, "this was part of the influence of the Buddhist monk, who telepathically transmitted to me seeds of new consciousness."

Running with Wolves

At the end of the service his adjustment problems grew worse; he could not enter close spaces and used to sleep on the roof of his house. He decided to travel and found himself in the center of Mexico. There he joined a group of hippies and lived with them in a commune a three days walk from any inhabited place. As a typical Sagittarian he used to roam for long hours in nature, until one day he ran into a Shaman of the Navaho tribe: "Again, he did not speak English and at that time I did not speak his language," he says. "But like the monk in Vietnam he held my consciousness and told me telepathically, 'Brother, follow me,' so I did!"
He spent six months close to the Shaman, who, initiated him into the secret of Peyote, that cactus that brings about an irreversible change in consciousness, if you learn to use it in a very specific way known to very experienced shamans alone. With the help of Peyote many barriers in consciousness fall and a direct perception of insights is made possible. Unlike drugs, this is not about illusions or imagination, but direct perception of the truth. This is how shamans teach. One day, while he was roaming in nature, he met a pack of wolves, and due to the use of Peyote he found himself telepathically connecting with the head of the pack. In their non-verbal conversation he asked whether he could join the pack and was answered in the affirmative. Thus he spent about three weeks with the wolves, and made a pact with them that lasts to this day (he then added the name Wolf to his name). According to him he can communicate with other animals as well. Today Jeffrey Green is a father of four children and transmits his knowledge through his books and lectures. I met him for the first time in 1993, after reading his first book about astrology and the evolution of the soul. I sent him a letter to thank him and to my surprise received an answer almost without delay. Since then we are in a continuous personal and professional contact, and in 1996 I even invited him to give lectures in Tel Aviv. Besides the fact that with his arrival in the airport the Ministry of Interior officials wanted to deport him back on no reasonable grounds (probably they are not keen on Peyote) the encounter with Israeli astrologers was especially intense. Last year we formally inaugurated the Astrology and Evolution of the Soul Learning center in Tel Aviv.

From Bitterness to Compassion

Recently we met in an astrological convention in Denver, Colorado, where we held this conversation. I asked him how practicing astrology and the evolution of the soul affected his life.
"With all the traumas I experienced during childhood, Vietnam and others, I became a bitter person," he says. "I didn't want anything to do with people or society. I became a monk. I was in a Buddhist monastery; I lived in Nepal for a time. But God had probably other intentions. The point is that through my practice of astrology I became much more compassionate towards the human condition, and developed a wish to help and contribute. When you are exposed to the intimacy of people, you see them differently. You can understand the pain, and in this context understand the different behavior and the reactions of every person."

What is the meaning of astrology spiritually?
"Astrology is the symbolic language of God. We have to use it to see our existence as objectively as possible and to understand existence in general. Today, with the changing of ages, astrology develops, and all this innovative knowledge will turn it into a very useful tool. The evolution of the soul will be a central theme in the discipline of astrology. In Arizona there is already a college financed by the government that also includes in its curriculum Evolutionary Astrology. I was also invited to lecture in Bombay, India, before the community of Vedic (an Indian method) astrologers. In the past century many disciplines from the East inspired the ways of thinking of the Western world. Now the movement starts to go both ways."

We are marching towards the Age of Aquarius, and most of us expect more spiritual awareness. Even so, in retrospect, the Age of Pisces, which represents the spirit, was completely chaotic, and very improper use was made in it of the spirit (persecution on religious grounds). There is some expectation for redemption in the new age. Are we deluding ourselves that things will really change?
"During the current Age of Aquarius the world will return to function according to natural laws. So it was during the last Age of Aquarius (approximately 25,000 years ago). This does not mean there won't be cars or shopping malls, but each person will act in cooperation with natural laws. This is possible even in the modern world. Even so, it will not happen through collective, spontaneous enlightenment; many people come with the expectation that one clear day everyone will meditate, realize the truth, and wars will end. This is the superficial and delusional aspect of the course of the new age. Transformations will take place through survival necessity. We will have no other choice but to change, since the human species will face unprecedented dangers, mostly natural disaster, new diseases and religious-international terror. These three things will lead to the changes needed for a higher awareness."

Do you think there is more love today than two thousand years ago?
"I would say there is less today."

And do you think there will be more love in the near future?
"Again, it seems this will happen after humankind will experience disasters. Disasters are needed to eliminate all that is redundant. After them, the human species will connect with what really matters in life and will learn to remove all that is insignificant. People will learn to channel with the soul, heart and space, and not with the existing nonsense. In times of threat there is no time to deal with superficiality and nonsense!"

What happens to the soul between lifetimes?
"When the soul leaves the body, it enters what is called the astral dimension. This dimension is very versatile, and each soul experiences it according to its level of evolution. The astral dimension is very similar to our world, only it doesn't have buildings, roads, cars and shopping malls... only the appearence of these things - of anything you can imagine. 

"When the soul leaves the body, its first experience is the reconstruction of the last lifetime and all the preceding incarnations. This is in order to understand the karma and build the content of the next lifetime.  Through Evolutionary Astrology I have found that the shortest time a soul is outside a body is seven days, and the longest - about a thousand years... those who reincarnate in a short time usually experienced death at an early age the past lifetime."

What do you propose to people in the street in the twenty-first century?
"Smile and be happy."

Yes, but how to be happy?
"Demonstrate a very sincere wish to know God and the truth, do as much as possible to connect with a higher power in a direct experience. Then connect the personal wish with the power of the supreme will, develop the awareness of what that supreme power wants to create through the soul, and just do it. This is happiness!"