What’s this about Astrology?
By Carol Roberts, MD
“Whatever is born or done at this particular moment of time has the quality of this moment in time.” - from the Collected Works of CG Jung
My interest in astrology was intensified one Thursday evening when a lady who would come to be very dear to me showed up at my office for a free lecture. She had come to hear her chiropractor talk about something I don’t remember. I introduced him. After the talk Betty came up to me and opened with “When is your birthday?”
It turned out she was a professional astrologer from Boston who had recently moved to Florida, where she was having a hard time connecting with like-minded people. My curiosity about this ancient tool had always been great, so I immediately asked her if she might be willing to teach astrology classes at my office. She agreed, and a decade long friendship and exploration of the subject began.
ASTROLOGY AND MATHEMATICS WITH THEIR BASTARD CHILD ASTRONOMY
As a medical doctor, I respect the need for science. As a clinician, I respect real world results. As a human being I’m always looking for the “truth” of our improbable existence in this crazy confusing universe.
The Egyptians used astrology, the Chinese dynasties used it, the royal courts of Europe all had their astrologers. What did they learn from it and what can we learn from it today? The ancients had precise knowledge of the planetary movements, could predict astronomical events - eclipses, retrogrades, the seasons, etc. through careful observation. An ephemeris (tables of the locations of the planets day by day) was as accurate then as now with all our fancy equipment and calculating power.
Through the eons, astrologers designed a system that assigned personalities to the planets, and meaning to their positions vis a vis each other in the night sky. Heroes and animals were seen to move around the bowl of the sky in predictable ways. Earthly events were correlated to these movements, until a system of explanation and prediction was created, which continues to be refined to this day. Humanity needs order, reason and meaning. Astrology once provided those. The Church (any church, any religion, to be sure), also has structure and tends to strongly object to any other explanatory system. These days science is our religion, and can be equally dismissive of any other explanatory system.
I ask you, for purposes of exploring the truth of it, to suspend your need for randomized controlled trials and see if the system of astrology may have some sort of practical relevance to your life.
Come with me on a magical mystery tour and let’s see what we can learn.
The underlying premise of astrology, as Jung has indicated, is that at the moment of your birth, at the exact point on planet Earth, the heavenly bodies were positioned in a very unique way. Each planet’s vibrational frequency (electromagnetic emanations, if you prefer) is reaching you from a particular angle, Combined, they create what I like to think of as “your birthday song”, or your natal chart, the written format astrologers utilize. Even twins aren’t born at the same moment, but they are interesting to study, just as twin studies of metabolism, or any other metric, give us a way to tease out genetic from environmental factors.
I like to observe with an open mind if there seems to actually be something to astrology. Let curiosity allow you to explore the facts as only you can observe them, you are the one who gets to say if it’s true or not. Not the peer reviewed literature, not the pundits or the podcasters or the doctors only you. In the privacy of your own mind.
Let’s see what unfolds for you.
The basics of astrology are the ten “planets” (including the sun and moon, but not the Earth), the twelve houses (in which area of your life the planets are arranged) and the twelve constellations that inform the wheel of the zodiac. This wheel consists of 360 degrees, and cycles through in a year. The arrangement at the moment of your birth can be understood as a map of your personality and the major influences of your childhood. Superimposed upon this static map, the planets continue to dance and whirl, generating great waves of gravity snd EM emanations that affect you and everyone all the time!
As a story-telling species, humans create patterns that mirror our psyches and our lives, as depicted in the starry sky.
The constellation at the first degree of the house where the sun appears in your chart is called your “sun sign”. Most people know what their sun sign is, but know little beyond that. The sun sign is the predominant “flavor” of your personality. More on that soon.
The constellation at 0 degrees (on the far-left horizon in the chart) is called “the ascendant” and signals the way you present yourself to the world.
The third important factor to know is the position of the moon, representing the mother (your relationship to her) and your most appropriate choice of career.
So, for example, someone could have Aquarius sun, Libra rising and moon in Virgo. That would be me. We will see soon what each sign means.
When you approach all this with an open mind, your story begins to emerge, and the deeper Jungian archetypes reveal themselves.
There are four categories (elements) to which each sign belongs - three in air, (Gemini, Libra, Aquarius), three in water (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces), three in fire (Aries, Leo and Sagittarius), and three in earth (Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn).
Air signs are intellectual, a little off the ground, and often too abstract.
Water signs are emotional, sensitive and empathic.
Fire signs are about action, movement and change.
Earth signs are stable, material and manifest in the real world.
The number of planets in each element will indicate the mix of groundedness vs abstraction, primacy of emotional responsiveness vs intellectualization, motivation and ability to manifest one’s dreams. Complicated? Yes, but so are we as individuals.
TO BE CONTINUED.
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