Scholar finds new meaning in universe through astrology

In the early 1500s, Nicolas Copernicus discovered that the Earth revolves around the sun.
Copernicus was a Catholic Church official, as well as a scientist. He felt the discovery to be holy, showing that God had created human beings to His great glory, able to use divinely-given abilities to see His patterns and purposes — the soul of the universe.
To Copernicus, and people for thousands of years before him, the world and all creation were part of a holy and mystical oneness.
It took a long time for Copernicus' heliocentric idea to become commonly accepted, even by the scientists of his day.
Once his idea was accepted, though, human minds and the world's soul began to separate.
Except for mystics, people forgot that sense of oneness. As humans began to make more and more discoveries, we began to feel more and more like the center of the universe.
By the 1700 and 1800s, when human reason was almost enshrined as a god, we had lost the sense that our discoveries were a part of a divine plan, and we felt that our minds and abilities were the apex of creation.
We were the supreme subjects, observing and acting upon objects (meaning everything else in the universe). Even God became completely Other, a transcendent force or being to which believers related, but not something that was simply present in all existence.
The first half of the 20th century, with its wars, atomic holocaust and destruction of millions of innocent people, made us feel even more alone. "Meaning" itself seemed a meaningless term. In terms of our world view — our universe view — we modern and post-modern folk have been strangers in a strange cosmos.
Now, a respected scholar is telling us our alienation is of our own creation, and that the universe actually does have meaning.
Richard Tarnas, a cultural historian best known for his book "The Passion of the Western Mind," argues persuasively that the old idea of the universe having a soul is true. We (and everything else) are a part of it, just as the ancients knew.
In his new book "Cosmos and Psyche," Tarnas makes a detailed argument for astrology as a tool for understanding the interdependence of our world and the rest of the universe.
Yes! Astrology.
Not sun signs or newspaper horoscopes, but astrology of the very old school, harking back to the Babylonians and Egyptians. This scholar of excellent repute is risking his reputation on the radical argument that a complex practice of astrology can be our key to re-finding meaning and holiness/wholeness in all that is.
Atheist humanists, devout believers and all sorts of people in between, are apt to be skeptical upon first hearing of Tarnas' approach
But there is a lot at stake here; the reclaiming of holy inter-connectedness itself. Can we do less than approach this scholar's work with an open mind?
Let us read "Cosmos and Psyche" and listen to Tarnas speak. Let us remember that the ho-hum idea that our earth circles the sun was once considered stupid, not worth even arguing about.
It is possible that we are approaching a great turning point in our understanding of ourselves, the rest of earthly creation, the universe and the Holy.
It is possible that the mystics have always been right: All is one, and we can find fulfilling, responsible spirituality in our sense of connectedness.