Astrology Is the Wheel, You Are the Car, and Spirit Is the Driver

 

Have you ever been sitting at a plate of your favorite Heart-Attack Fudge in your favorite confectioner-and-mortuary shop when the guy at the next table starts spouting off (to the velvet painting on the wall) that he's a first-house Leo with Knees in Cancer, and that his wife left him when her Moon entered Sagittarius, but then thought better of it and backed out?

 

Or have you ever watched little boys chasing each other around the park yelling epithets at each other such as, “Your wimpy father's got Saturn in Pisces!” and in reply, “Oh yeah? Your cry-baby dad’s got an ascendant Moon!”

 

Yes, yes, everywhere we turn, astrology is the topic of the day. And with good reason. Where else but in astrology can you find the answers to heartache, bleeding wallet, and which brownie packs the most punch?

 

“But what is it all about?” you ask. “Lot’s of mumbo jumbo; sound’s like obfuscation to me.” (“Obfuscation” means to make things look mysterious, like saying to your sweetie that his beloved missing cat was abducted by aliens instead of telling the truth?that she choose to go of her own free will.)

 

But jargon-laden lingo is unnecessary; good astrologers dispense with it. If that man at the next table in the fudge shop had been this kind of astrologer, he would have said, “I'm a loud-mouth with trembling knees, and my wife left me ’cause she got a good kick in the pants with an itch she needs to scratch.”

Yes, astrology has it’s own terminology, but it boils down to a set of ten or so marks (planets) spread out in a mandala pattern that represents, symbolically, your life. A kind of blueprint. Not fate, not “should’s,” but opportunity.

 

A wise man once put it in a nutshell like this (and that the wise man looked a lot like me was one of life?s strange little coincidences):

 

“Astrology is the practice of delineating issues based on the maxim, ‘as above, so below,’ which posits the interrelatedness of all phenomena, both material and metaphysical. The belief in actual planetary influences is not necessary to this approach, though much has been done to corroborate at least some specific actual cause-and-effect relationships. However, for most practitioners this system does presume a web of life and spirit reaching beyond the material.”

 

Let’s take a look at this phrase, “as above, so below.” This means that what happens in the macrocosm (“the stars” or in spirit), is mirrored in our human lives. Therefore, by looking at the placement and relationships of planets in your birthchart, certain characteristics of your life can be deduced. With this knowledge, you are better able to anticipate circumstances and respond successfully.

 

When you go into an astrological reading, then, you can expect to receive information that is specific to your life. The chart (a “great wheel,” or mandala) is divided into twelve pie-shaped sections that correspond to specific life “arenas” (the houses), such as money, various kinds of relationships, or work. Where the planets fall into these sections will say a lot about the kind of “energies” you'll most likely “occupy” when dealing with these issues. Let it be said, however, that the planets are not the energies themselves; they are lenses of various colors that emit the light of the signs, the grand archetypal potentials common to all peoples.

 

For example, Saturn in Pisces(to take the epithet hurled by one of the boys in the park): let’s say this planet is in the first houses (of personality); these three things together might suggest a muted or empathetic (Pisces) display of authority and resolve (Saturn) in one’s most-commonly observed behaviors (first house). But the relationship of this Saturn to other planets (aspects), would say a great deal more about the actual feel of this dynamic. Putting it all together is the job of the astrologer.

 

Let it be said again that astrology is not fate. However, it might seem so if you live your life unconsciously. This is because the mandalar blueprint that is your birthchart does indeed state the means and ways of how your life energies are programmed. How you direct and respond to these patterns depends upon your understanding of yourself (via astrology or any number of self-actualizing paths).

 

And the birthchart is not the only tool available for an astrological reading. Transits reveal information pertinent to your life at this moment; synastry compares information for two people in a relationship, and solar returns explain the main issues for your life in the year from one birth date to the next.

 

Whatever tool you use for self-discovery, remember astrology as an honored, very long-standing tradition for self-realization. The chart is the wheel imprinted by spirit in you (“as above, so below”) to ride to your destiny. Good traveling! (And don’t forget the fudge.)