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June 2, 2020
A birthchart is a rich, living statement, full of insights, guidelines, and warnings. It describes not a static fate but a flowing life pattern, full of options and risks. An encounter with an effective astrologer should leave a person not only entertained but inspired to live more fully and confidently, with a deeper sense of purpose and a keener alertness regarding the comforting lies we all love so well.
astrological forces present us not with answers but with questions.
Astrology supplies the terrain. How we navigate it is our own business.
see the human common denominators beneath the masks of circumstance.
help people grow, to answer their own questions in happier ways. Growth. That is the key. That is what separates true astrology from simple fortune-telling.
Real skill comes with experience, but the aura of “occult power” that has always surrounded the art is a smokescreen.
Astrology is technical, but it is the technology of life.
astrological knowledge, coupled with an accurate birthchart, can boost our sensitivity to a remarkable degree. It is life’s Rosetta stone. It breaks the code. The chaos, the pain, and the seeming randomness of our lives coalesce before our eyes into an orderly system. And once we grasp that system, we spend a lot less time swimming against the tide.
Learn astrology for yourself and you will make better decisions.
push your own fog out of the way long enough to help people you lov...
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that place where cosmos and consciousness touch: the human psyche.
There is an indeterminacy, an unpredictable element in life.
Astrology is just a finger pointing at reality. Like any other language, it only provides a way of ordering our perceptions. At its best it aids us in seeing ourselves more honestly. At its worst it drops a wall between us and the rawness of our own experience. To be of value it must not only reflect the actualities of living; it must hone the cutting edge of our growth. If astrology does not give the mind the sharpness of a laser and leave the heart an open nerve, then it has failed.
We are not inalterably programmed at birth, predestined to run off our astrological tapes until our batteries run down.
it is to that single atom of mutability that astrology must speak. It must address the life in us, not the stasis.
Each astrological symbol represents a spectrum of possibilities; each birthchart contains the roots of ten thousand personalities. This is the key to the system.
There is no such thing as a good birthchart or a bad one. There are no evolved charts or unevolved ones, no sane ones, no schizophrenic ones.
Astrology can help us in only three ways. It can vividly portray the happiest life available to us. It can tell us what tools we have available for the job and how best to employ them. And it can warn us in advance about how our lives will look when we are getting off the mark. From that point on, we must affirm that all choices lie in our own hands and that no planet or sign ever preordains a specific fate.
Nothing can be learned from a birthchart that could not be learned someplace else.
Astrology is just one more path to self-knowledge. And like all other paths, it has certain advantages and disadvantages. Astrology’s principal advantage is speed.
an astrological reading, or reading this book, consumes only an afternoon. In a matter of two or three hours a level of self-awareness can be generated that might take years to put together in any other way.
Astrology does not change people any more than psychotherapy changes people. People change themselves.
Unlike metaphysics, in astrology the emphasis is on the seeker rather than on what he or she seeks. Astrology is not theological; it is direct, real, experiential.
no matter how we mentally construct the universe, the universe in which we actually live is unchanged.
The intensification of a person’s self-awareness: in astrology, that is all that matters. In promoting that intensification, anyone who interprets a birthchart must have absolute respect for the independence and self-determination of each mind he or she touches.
What astrology does provide is a blueprint of the lens through which we must peer into those labyrinths: the personality.
each personality has an ideal form, a form that is indicated by the positions of the planets at the time of our birth.
a certain pattern of needs and predispositions that the social personality must always reflect if there is to be peace in the mind. And peace is the objective. But peace does not arise automatically. We must work toward it, aligning our outer personality with our inner essence.
Astrology is hedonistic. Pleasure-seeking. It is immediate and amoral. All that matters to it is happiness. A mirror reflecting life, it observes but does not interpret.
By reminding us of who we are.
In the hands of a sensitive, skilled, articulate astrologer, the birthchart can catapult us beyond those traps. It helps us avoid becoming just another character out of central casting. Ina flash, the whole pattern of creative tensions, blind spots, and aspirations that makes up our own unique personality comes to a focus.
Glimpsing our essential self fills us with vitality. It helps us make better choices. We take care of ourselves more effectively. We learn to separate what we really want from what we feel compelled to want.
This, then, is the real purpose of astrology: to hold a mirror before the evolving self, to tell us what we already know deep within ourselves. Through astrology we fly far above the mass of details that constitutes our lives. We stand outside our personalities and see for a moment the central core of individuality around which all the minutiae must always orbit. We witness ourselves.
Seven fundamental ideas form the backbone of any growth oriented vision of astrology. Any individual or text that diverges very far from them is probably more a part of astrology’s bad karma than part of its future. Astrological symbols are neutral. There are no good ones, no bad ones. Individuals are responsible for the way they embody their birthcharts. No astrologer can determine a person’s level of response to his birthchart from that birthchart alone. The birthchart is a blueprint for the happiest, most fulfilling, most spiritually creative path of growth available to the individual. All
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astrological symbols are not nouns, they are verbs.
Growth. Change. Evolution. That is the heart of astrology.
Signs, houses, and planets. Three distinct systems of symbols. Three vocabularies. Together they form astrology’s holy trinity. Each serves a distinct purpose. Each answers a distinct set of questions.
signs are identity, while houses are the arena within which identity operates. Signs provide the psychological framework, the needs and fears, the attitudes and biases, with which we attack the houses. Houses indicate problems and issues. They represent tasks we must face.
Signs symbolize processes that take place within the mind, Each is a pattern of growth with which a person becomes intensely identified:
Houses are more concrete. They represent that which the mind observes.
Some houses are less outwardly active. But they always symbolize something outside personality, something of which we must become aware.
Planets are the third dimension of astrological symbolism. They represent the actual structure of the mind. Each one symbolizes a particular psychological function:
Put all the planets together and you have a map of the human psyche.
the planetary map is blank. It describes all the departments of the psyche, but it does not say what is in each department.
To understand how a planet operates we must see it in the context of a sign and a house.
we look at the house. That is where the sign planet dynamic is released.
Unlocking the interactions of these three kinds of symbols – signs, planets, and houses is the key to unlocking the secrets of the individual birthchart.
the three systems of symbols answer the questions what, how and why, and where. Always look first to the planet, which is the what. It lets us know which part of the mind we are considering. Then use the sign to determine exactly what that planet wants and what methods it might best use to achieve those goals – the why and the how. Finally, look at the house. It answers the where, telling us in precisely which department of life the battle is taking place.
• Planets tell us which part of the mind we are looking at (the what). • Signs let us know what needs and strategies drive that planet (the why and the how). • Houses specify in exactly which of life’s arenas that planet-sign combination is developing (the where).
Interpretation. That is the heart of astrology. Weaving together the messages of the signs, houses, and planets, interlacing them, seeing how they flavor one another, enhance one another, undercut one another – that is the astrologer’s art.
