The Sky Within

 

Planet	Sign	Position	House		House Cusps
Sun	Aries	09°Ar38'	10th		01  21°Ca29'
Moon	Aquarius	00°Aq44'	07th		02  12°Le00'
Mercury	Pisces	24°Pi09'	09th		03  05°Vi52'
Venus	Aries	24°Ar54'	10th		04  05°Li40'
Mars	Pisces	14°Pi30'	09th		05  11°Sc44'
Jupiter	Pisces	01°Pi03'	08th		06  18°Sg58'
Saturn	Aquarius	09°Aq17'	07th		07  21°Cp29'
Uranus	Leo	26°Le54' R	02nd		08  12°Aq00'
Neptune	Scorpio	12°Sc58' R	05th		09  05°Pi52'
Pluto	Virgo	08°Vi06' R	03rd		10  05°Ar40'
Midheaven	Aries	05°Ar40'	10th		11  11°Ta44'
Ascendant	Cancer	21°Ca29'	01st		12  18°Ge58'

  

 

THE SKY WITHIN

by Steven Forrest

Using Your Birthchart as a Spiritual Guide

A woman has a baby and is blissful about it. Another one does the same, and spends the rest of her life dreaming about how she might have been a ballerina. The same choice: having a kid. But only one smiling woman.

Nobody has a generic formula for happiness, at least not one that does the trick for everyone. That's where astrology comes in.

The birthchart, stripped to bare bones, is simply a description of the happiest, most fulfilling life that's available to you... personally. It spells out a set of strategies you can use to avoid boring routines, bad choices, and dead ends. It lists your resources. And it talks about how your life looks when you're misusing the resources and distorting the strategies -- shooting yourself in the foot, in other words.

All from a map of the sky?

Hard to believe. But think for a minute...

"How can the planets possibly affect us? They're millions of miles away." Astrology's critics are fond of rolling out that argument. But it doesn't hold water. Go out and gaze at the moon. What's really happening? Incomprehensible energies are plunging across a quarter million miles of void, crashing through your eyeballs and creating electrochemical changes in your brain. We call the process "seeing the moon." Certainly the planets affect us. The question is where do we draw the boundaries around those effects?

Let's go a step further.

Open your eyes on a starry night. What do you see? A vast, luminous space, full of shadows and light. Now close your eyes so tight they ache. Where are you now? What do you see? Again, a vast, luminous space, full of shadows and light. Consciousness and cosmos are structured around the same laws, follow the same patterns, and even feel pretty much the same to our senses.

"As above, so below." Just as the starry night awes us with its vastness, there's something infinitely deep inside you, a place you go when you close your eyes, a place that's beyond being an Aries or a Gemini or even a specific gender. At the most profound level, a birthchart is a map back to that magical center. It describes a series of earthly experiences which, if you're brave and open enough, will trigger certain states of consciousness in you -- states that operate like powerful spiritual catalysts, vaulting you into higher levels of being.

In the pages that follow, you'll tour your personal birthchart. But don't expect the usual "Scorpios are sexy" stuff. You are a mysterious being in a mysterious cosmos. You're here for just a little while, a blink of God's eye. You face a monumental task: figuring out what's going on! In that spiritual work, astrology is your ally. How will it help?

Certainly not by pigeon-holing you as a certain "type."

Astrology works by reminding you who you are, by warning you about the comforting lies we all tell ourselves, and by illuminating the experiences that trigger your most explosive leaps in awareness.

After that, the rest is up to you.

YOUR TEN TEACHERS

Freud divided the human mind into three compartments: ego, id, and superego. Astrologers do the same thing, except that our model of the mind differs from Freud's in two fundamental ways. First, it's a lot more elaborate. Instead of three compartments, we have ten: Sun, Moon, and the eight planets we see from Earth. As we'll discover, each planet represents more than a "circuit" in your psyche. It also serves as a kind of "Teacher," guiding you into certain consciousness-triggering kinds of experience.

The second difference between astrology and psychology is that astrology's mind-map, unlike Freud's, is rooted in nature itself, just as we are.

The primary celestial teacher is the Sun. What does it teach? Selfhood. Vitality. How to keep the life-force strong in yourself. If the Sun grew dimmer, so would all the planets -- they shine by reflecting solar light. Similarly, if you fail to stoke the furnaces of your own inner Sun, then you'll simply be "out of gas." All your other planetary functions will suffer too.

How do we learn this teacher's lessons?

Start by realizing that when you were born the Sun was in Aries.

Courage!  That's what Aries is all about.  Traditionally this sign is represented as the Ram -- a fierce, frightening creature.  That's a pretty good description of how this energy looks from the outside.  Inside, it's different.  Not the Ram, but the newborn robin, two days old, just hatched from its shell, living in a world full of creatures who think of it as breakfast.  Does it cower?  No -- the little bird flaps its stubby wings and squawks its head off, demanding its right to exist.  That's Aries: the raw primal urge to survive.  Existential courage.

Courage is a funny virtue -- it has to be scared into a person.  In the evolutionary scheme of life, Aries energy has a disconcerting property: it draws stress to itself.  You can choose a life of risk and adventure.  Or you can choose a life of one damn thing after another.  Refuse the first, you'll get the second.

With the Sun in Aries, there's a hidden spiritual agenda behind the dramatic tone of your life: you're getting braver.  Every month, every year, you attract a set of challenges.  As you've probably noticed, you're a magnet for stress.  Sounds terrible, right?  Don't worry: you've have a choice.  There are two kinds of stress: the kind we hate and the kind we like.  The kind we like we generally call by other names, like exhilaration and adventure... which, for you, is the path of destiny. 

Accept it.  Live the gambler's life.  Risk the lows for the sake of the highs.  Do it, or all that fire inside you will turn sour, emerging as tension, argumentativeness, and pointless trouble.

We can take our analysis of your natal Sun a step further. When you were born, that solar light illuminated the Tenth house. What does that signify?

Start by realizing that Houses represent twelve basic arenas of life. There's a House of Marriage, for example, and a House of Career. Always, we find an element of "fate" in our House structures; the "Hand of God" continually presents us with existential and moral questions connected with our emphasized Houses. How we react and what we learn -- or fail to learn -- is our own business.

One brief technical note: Sometimes the Sun, the Moon, or a planet lies near the end of the House. We then say it's "conjunct the cusp" of the subsequent House, and interpret it as though it were a little further along... in the next House, in other words.

Community -- that's the key to the Tenth House. How do you fit into your local branch of civilization?  What role do you play there?  "He's an anesthesiologist." That's a Tenth House statement. But so is, "She's into the women's movement." Even though she doesn't make a dime being a feminist, it still says something about the hat she wears in the community.

Planetary Teachers in this House do two things for you.  They outline your "cosmic job description." That is, they tip you off about the role you were born to play in your community. Unfortunately, they don't do that very well; there are a billion roles and only ten planets, so the descriptions they provide are of necessity rather vague.  At best, they're rough guidelines.

Tenth House Teachers do better with their second task.  They point out parts of your own character that need to be developed to a radical degree before your mission coalesces before your eyes.  Accept their suggestions, act on them, and you'll leave a lasting stamp of your vision upon the myths and symbols of your community.

With the Sun in the Tenth House, it's as though Spirit has asked you to figure out a way to get paid for being yourself.  Prominent in your "cosmic job description" is the notion that you are to be some sort of role model or exemplar for your community, embodying in yourself a set of principles or skills.  To accomplish that, the part of your character you must develop to a radical degree is... yourself.  And that takes time.  In youth, be wary of the way society will try to seduce you into prematurely accepting some role that doesn't have much to do with your nature or values.  When a Tenth House Sun blooms well, it usually blooms late.

The next step in our journey through your birthchart carries us to the Moon.

As you might expect, Luna resonates with the magical, emotional sides of your psyche. It represents your mood, averaged over a lifetime. As the heart's teacher, it tells you how to feel comfortable, how to meet your deepest needs. While the Sun lets you know what kinds of experiences and relationships help you feel sane, the Moon is concerned with another piece of the puzzle: feeling happy.

When you were born, the Moon was in Aquarius.

Aquarius is the sign of geniuses -- and criminals.  It represents Individuation, which is a five-dollar word meaning the process of being yourself.  Set against your individuation are all the social forces of conformity.  Buy a necktie!  Shave your legs!  Get hungry at noon!  Outwardly, they show up as peer pressures.  Inwardly, those forces are more subtle but even more formidable: all the internalized scripts that go with having once been a very little kid learning how to be human from mom, dad, and the television set.

The Aquarian part of you is odd somehow.  It doesn't fit into the social environment, at least not without betraying itself.  In this part of your life, the more centered you get, the weirder you'll seem -- to Ann Landers and her crowd.  Go for it, and pay the price of alienation or ostracism.  It's high... but not as high as the price of living a life that's not your own.

With the Moon in Aquarius, your feelings "don't work right" -- that, at least, will often be the consensus among your self-appointed psychotherapists, employment counselors, and sundry gurus.  There are times when you'll be under a lot of social pressure to feel happy -- and you'll be sad.  Other times, you'll be pressured to mourn -- and you'll feel release.  Or jealous -- and you'll be secure.  Or enraged -- and you'll be accepting.  It's enough to make a person feel crazy.  Avoid that too; it's just another one of the social scripts you're learning to break.  From an evolutionary viewpoint, you are developing the ability to be true to your own instincts about what's going on inside you... and to avoid what for you would be the deadening emptiness of conventional "normalcy."

The people who make you feel most comfortable are outsiders, the ones who don't fit any social mold very tightly.  Spend time with them; they feed your spirit.

Going farther, we see that your Moon lies in the Seventh house of your chart.

One thing about love -- there's no way to learn much about it without some help!  The Seventh House, traditionally the House of Marriage, is the part of your birthchart where you encounter the people who'll provide your deepest insights into intimacy.  But that's not a code word for sex!  For that reason, "Marriage" is a misleading title for this House.  You can have intimacy without erotic or romantic feelings.

There are two parts to understanding the Seventh House.  The first is that whatever energies you have in this part of your birthchart represent lessons you're learning about empathy, trust, and commitment.  The second is that those same planetary energies describe the people who'll provide the lessons.  They may be mates or lovers.  They may be best friends.  They may be colleagues or business associates.  They may even be "worthy opponents."

With the Moon in the Seventh House, you've shoved the most vulnerable part of your psychological self right into the hornet's nest: the perilous world of intimacy!  You bring tremendous empathy and caring into your love life; you also bring all your wounds and tender places.  For you to feel comfortable, there has to be a lot of subjective "flow" between you and the people with whom you share your life.  For that reason your "soulmates" tend to be emotional folks, full of imagination, in touch with their needs and fears -- and often, therefore, rather moody.  In love, you're riding a roller coaster and that's scarey... but you really wouldn't have it any other way.

There's a third critical piece in your astrological puzzle -- the Ascendant, or rising sign. Along with the Sun and Moon, it completes the "primal triad." What is it? What does it mean? Simple -- the Ascendant is the sign that was coming up over the eastern horizon at the instant of your birth. It's where the sun is at dawn, in other words. In exactly the same way, the Ascendant represents how you "dawn" on people -- that is, how you present yourself. It's your "style," or your "mask."

The ascendant means more than that. It symbolizes a way you can help yourself feel centered, at ease, comfortable with who you are. If you get its message, then something wonderful happens: your style hooks you into the world of experience in a way that feeds your spirit exactly the kinds of events and relationships you need. Your soul is charged with more enthusiasm for the life you're living -- and you feel vibrant, confident, and full of animal grace.

When you took your first breath, Cancer was lifting over the eastern horizon of Oakland,CA. Let's begin our analysis by considering the meaning and spiritual message of the sign of "The Healer".

Opening the inner eye, mapping the topography of consciousness, learning to express compassion -- these are Cancer's evolutionary aims.  To assist in that work, Cosmic Intelligence has cranked up the volume on the Crab's ability to feel.  No other sign is so sensitive -- nor so vulnerable.  A certain amount of self-defense is appropriate here; after all, this world isn't exactly the Garden of Eden.  Trouble is, legitimate self-defense can degenerate into shyness or a fear of making changes.  You really do care about the hurts that other beings suffer.  That's good news.  You also have an instinctive ability to soothe those hurts, homing in on the source of the pain.  More good news.  The bad news is that you could choose to remain forever protected within the safe (and invisible!) role of the Healer, the Counselor, or the Wise One.

With Cancer rising, you face some unique challenges.  Basically, Cancer doesn't like to be rising!  The ascendant is our outward self; the Crab's nature is inward -- and it protects its inwardness with a shell, perhaps of shyness, perhaps of comfort-giving.  One point is sure: getting to know you isn't easy, although it's probably rewarding.  You watch people carefully before you open up to them.  For you, uninhibited self-expression is a gift you may choose to give, but people need to earn it first.

That's half the picture.  The other half is that, paradoxically, people feel an almost compulsive urge to open up to you, to tell you about the parts of their lives that hurt.  If you had a penny for every stranger who has unburdened himself or herself on you, you could retire to Monaco and live off the change.

What have we learned so far? Quite a lot. Astrologers use the primal triad of Sun, Moon, and Ascendant in much the same way people who know just a little astrology use Sun signs. The difference is that while there are only twelve Sun signs, there are 1728 different combinations of all three factors. So when we say that you are a Aries with the Moon in Aquarius and Cancer rising, that's a very specific statement.

Here's a way to make those words come even more alive. Traditionally, signs are connected with Bulls and Sea-Goats and Scorpions -- creatures we don't see every day. But we can translate those images into more modern archetypes.

We can say you are "The Warrior", or "The Survivor", or "The Daredevil". Those are just different ways of saying you have the Sun in Aries.

We can say you have the soul of "The Genius", or "The Truth-Sayer", or "The Exile"... your Moon lies in Aquarius, in other words.

We can add that you wear the mask of "The Healer", or "The Wise One", or "The Invisible One". Those images capture the spirit of your Ascendant, which is Cancer.

You can combine those archetypes any way you want. And you can go further: Once you have a feel for the three basic signs in your primal triad, you can make up your own images to go with them. Whatever words you choose, those simple statements are your fundamental astrological signature. It's your skeleton. Our next step is to begin adding flesh and hair to that skeleton by considering the planets.

Unsurprisingly, planets can gain prominence in a birthchart through association with the Sun, Moon, or Ascendant. These three are power brokers, and any linkage with them boosts a planet's influence.

Sometimes a planet gains prominence in a birthchart simply by sharing a House with the Sun. That's the case with you. Venus is bathing in solar light, occupying the Tenth House along with our central star.

Venus is the part of your mental circuitry that's concerned with releasing tension and maintaining harmony. Its focus is always peace, inwardly and outwardly. As such, it represents your aesthetic functions -- your taste in colors, sounds, and forms. Why? Because the perception of beauty soothes the human heart. Venus is also tied to your affiliative functions -- your romantic instincts, your sense of courtesy or diplomacy, your taste in friends. Invariably, this planet has one goal: sustaining your serenity in the face of life's onslaughts.

Venus was passing through Aries. Thus, both your aesthetic sensitivity and your taste in partners is shaped by the direct, primal spirit of the Warrior. In the realm of beauty, whether natural or wrought by human hands, you have a taste for the elemental and primitive... no frilly fru-fru need apply. The same goes for friends and sexual partners -- you appreciate honesty, a willingness to roar, and a simple dedication to basics, such as loyalty and plain speech.

With Venus in the Tenth House, your "cosmic job description" is Peacemaker, Counselor, or Artist. An old-fashioned astrologer would simply say you're lucky when it comes to work and status. That's true... in a way. But be careful: Life will dangle cushy positions before you like the worm before the trout... and they conceal the hook of emptiness. (How to avoid it? Go back half a hundred words and re-read your "cosmic job description"... those Venus-sign images describe the paths of joy for you.)

A planet can gain authority by sharing a House with the Moon. We find that situation in your chart. Saturn is bathing in moonlight, occupying the Seventh House along with Luna.

Look at a NASA photo of Saturn. The icy elegance of the planet's rings, the pale understatement of the cloud bands... both hint at the clarity and precision which characterize Saturn's astrological spirit. Part of the human psyche must be cold and calculating, cunning enough to survive in the physical world. Part of us thrives on self-discipline, seeks excellence, pays the price of devotion. Somewhere in our lives there's a region where nothing but the best of what we are is enough to satisfy us. That's the high realm of Saturn. In its low realm, we take one glance at those challenges and our hearts turn to ice. We freeze in fear, and despair claims us.

The iconoclastic terrain of Aquarius offers a region of profound spiritual challenge for you, as Saturn was passing through that sign at your birth. You must learn to steel yourself in the face of the Water-Bearer's shadow side: phony eccentricity. There is an element of genius -- that is, radical independence of mind -- in your character. Develop it! Push it to its edges! That's how you were born to distinguish yourself, not through mere contrariness. Support that journey in practical, Saturnian terms by fortifying yourself with concrete skills and strategies -- especially ones pertinent to Saturn's House in your birthchart. Which House was that?

The Seventh! The arena of life where we encounter our soulmates -- lovers, deep friends, and partners -- and figure out what to do with them! With Saturn here, you face some profound lessons in the intimacy department. To prepare for them, focus first on self-sufficiency, both materially and emotionally. Then seek out partners with Saturnian qualities: responsibility, sobriety, a willingness to make -- and keep -- deep vows.

Your birthchart displays another area of heightened activity: the Ninth House. The reason for that is simple -- there's a lot of planetary activity. With Mercury and Mars in that area of your life, it is charged with activity, soul lessons, and opportunities for personal development. Before we even consider the planets separately, our first step is to explore this piece of existential real estate in broad terms.

The House of Long Journeys over Water -- that's one old name for this part of the birthchart.  Since you have energy focused here a fortune-teller would say, "I see travel in your stars."  True enough, although a deeper way of expressing the same notion is that immersing yourself in cultures outside the one into which you were born is a pivotal spiritual catalyst for you.

There are other kinds of catalytic journeys.  Getting a wide education, formally or informally, is one.  So is anything that breaks up the normal routines of life and thought.  Even learning to hang-glide.

Ultimately, in the Ninth House you weave a grand scheme of life's meaning and purpose, at least your own version of it.  This is the House of Religion... provided we recognize that many major world religions have no churches or temples.  Cynicism is one such religion.  Existentialism, Materialism, and Science are others, not to mention Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism and so on.

Mercury buzzes around the Sun in eighty-eight days, making it the fastest of the planets. It buzzes around your head in exactly the same way: frantically. It's the part of you that never rests -- the endless firing of your synapses as your intelligence struggles to organize a picture of the world. Mercury represents thinking and speaking, learning and wondering. It is the great observer, always curious. It represents your senses themselves and all the raw, undigested data that pours through them.

Mercury is dreaming in Pisces. That combination links your mental functions to the intuitive, symbol-weaving logic of the Oracle archetype. There's an open channel between your unconscious mind and your mouth. While you can make yourself think in strict rational terms, you get little pleasure from it, nor do you express your intelligence most efficiently that way. Spiritually you are learning to cultivate a flawless rapport between your conscious mind and the source of all inspiration -- to get out of your own way, in other words.

With the traditional "Messenger of the Gods" occupying your Ninth House, you have the mind of the eternal student, always learning, always eager to stretch a little further. It's important that you blow out the mental cobwebs periodically by taking a trip into another culture -- or by enrolling in a stimulating class or workshop.

Pale red Mars suggested blood to our ancestors, and they named it the War God. That's an effective metaphor -- Mars does represent violence. But today we go further. The red planet symbolizes the power of the Will. Assertiveness. Courage. Without it, there'd be no fire in life. No spark. Where your Mars lies, you are challenged to find the Spiritual Warrior inside yourself, the part of you that's brave and clear enough to claim your own path and follow it.

Mars weaves its heroic fantasies in dreaming Pisces. Inspiration, passion, vision -- they all come rather easily to you, unless you quench your fire with some form of numbing escapism. Spiritually the trick lies in learning to translate those virtues into concrete strategies and specific creative projects... actually to doing something, in other words! You can pull it off, but only if you learn to resist -- sometimes -- the seductive gravity of your own rich interior world.

With the War-God occupying your Ninth House, you have a fiery enthusiasm for life itself. Passionately, restlessly, you seem to be searching... for what? Answers, maybe, although that's a pale word. Instinctively you form a "religion" whose nucleus is the notion that mortal existence is not for the faint-hearted, that without courage, faith, and a willingness to live life to the fullest, we are nothing -- and deserve less.

In the final analysis, all planets are important. Each one plays a unique role in your developmental pattern, and failure to feed any one of them results in a diminution of your life. Just because the following planets aren't "having breakfast with the President" through association with the Sun, Moon, or Ascendant doesn't mean we can ignore them.

Take all the planets, all the meteors, moons, asteroids, and comets. Roll them up in a big ball of cosmic mush. They still wouldn't equal the mass of the "King of the Gods" -- Jupiter. Exactly that same bigness pervades the planet's astrological spirit. Jupiter is the symbol of buoyancy and generosity, of opportunity and joy. At the deepest level, it represents faith... faith in life, that is, rather than faith in anybody's theological position papers.

Jupiter stands in Pisces. This is an important piece of information -- maybe a pivotal one. Being human is tough sometimes. When you need to boost your elemental faith in life, your answer lies in following the Way of Dreams. That is, you restore yourself by sitting quietly, getting out of your own way, and just dissolving into that vast, shining space between your ears. For you, happiness is a natural state; when you're sad it's probably at least partly because you've allowed yourself to get overextended, too caught up in the worldly chase. So stop. Breathe. And feel bliss.

In your chart, the "King of the Gods" reigns in the Eighth House -- traditionally the "House of Death," although mating and sexuality are actually more central to the symbolism. To maintain your faith in life, you must seek a living sexual bond, full of eye-contact and soul-contact, with an open, enthusiastic partner. If you lack such a connection in your life, then it's especially critical that you contact the primal forces of nature in other ways. Walk in the wind. Meditate on a mountaintop at midnight. Stand on a dune with your heart open to the gale-driven waves.

If Uranus were the only planet in the sky, we'd all be so independent we'd still be Neanderthals throwing rocks at each other. There would be no language, no culture, no law. On the other hand, if Uranus did not exist, we'd all still be hauling rocks for Pharaoh. All individuality would be suppressed. This is the planet of individuation... the process whereby we separate out who we are from what everybody else wants us to be. Always it indicates an area of our lives in which, to be true to ourselves, we must "break the rules" -- that is, overcome the forces of socialization and peer pressure. In that part of our experience, what feeds our souls tends to annoy mom and dad... and all the "moms" and "dads" who lay down the law of the tribe.

With Uranus in Leo, the process of individuation for you is tied up with the Path of the Performer. That is to say, you strengthen and clarify your own Uranian identity through cultivating and polishing your innate capacity for creative self-expression -- and without that outlet, you're likely to clog up your life with unnecessary bombast and drama. Consciously chosen forays into the realm of performance, such as theater, music, or even the pursuit of athletic excellence, purify your sense of self, purging out the spurious "inner voices" you've swallowed sitting in front of the great wraparound television set of late twentieth century Industrial Culture.

House of Money -- that's the old name for the Second House, where your Uranus lies. The issues are broader; not just money, but the whole basis for your self-confidence and sense of personal legitimacy. Uranus is your Teacher here, and the lesson can be summarized this way: what other people think of you is none of your business. That which "normally" gives people a sense of being "okay" -- lots of social approval and a middle-of-the-road position -- fails you utterly. You hear a different drummer. Trust your ears!

You're lying in your bed, going to sleep. Suddenly a jolt runs through your body. You just "caught yourself falling asleep." Where were you two seconds before the jolt? What were you? Astrologically, the answer lies with Neptune. This is the planet of trance, of meditation, of dreams. It represents your doorway into the "Not-Self." Based on the sign the planet occupies, we identify a particularly critical spiritual catalyst for you... although we need to remember that Neptune remains in a Sign for an average of a little over thirteen years, so its Sign position actually describes not only you, but your whole generation. Its House position, however, is more uniquely your own.

Neptune was passing through Scorpio. Thus, to trigger higher states of consciousness in yourself and to stimulate your psychic development, you may choose to follow the Path of the Sorcerer... that is consciously, intentionally to seek access to the power aspects of the Great Mystery, perhaps through the mastery of healing techniques, or a study of shamanistic traditions, or the use of divinatory methods such as astrology or the tarot cards. Without exposure to the purifying, soul-bleaching effects of what we could broadly call "magic," you tend to drift away from Spirit, losing yourself in the mazes of daily life.

Neptune, planet of transcendence, occupies the Fifth House of your birthchart, where its mystical feelings are linked to your creativity and playfulness. A basic "yoga" you need to practice in this lifetime lies in experiencing the "creative trance" -- that curious state all artists know in which the conscious mind simply gets out of the way and allows the unconscious to speak. By allowing yourself to receive creative inspiration, you establish rapport with the secret realms of your own soul... and more than artistic imagery will flow up that road. Spiritual illumination will too.

"Life's a bitch. Then you die." Go to any boutique from coast to coast; you'll find those words on a coffee mug. Meaninglessness. Like most truly frightening ideas, we make a joke of it. That's Plutonian territory: the realm of all that terrifies us so badly we need to hide from it. Death. Disease. Our personal shame. Sexuality, to some extent. Initially, Pluto asks us to face our own wounds, squarely and honestly. Then, if we succeed, it offers us a way to create an unshakable sense of meaning in our lives. How? Methods vary according to the Signs and Houses involved, but always they have one point in common: the high Plutonian path invariably involves accepting some trans-personal purpose in your life.

One more point: Pluto moves so slowly that it remains in a given Sign for many years. As result, its Sign position in your birthchart refers not only to you but also to your generation. The House position, however, is much more personal in its relevance.

Pluto was journeying slowly through the sign Virgo. Thus the shadow material you are called upon to face has to do with the dark side of the Perfectionist archetype: surrendering to cynicism and defeat. In what part of your life or personal history have you chosen to take refuge in bitterness over the pain of continuing your journey? (If your answer is "Nowhere!" then congratulations... you're Enlightened... or not looking hard enough.)

At the moment of your birth, Pluto stood in the Third House... the part of the birthchart that addresses questions of perception. Spirit has blessed you with the sharp, penetrating eye of the truth-seer. To create a sense of meaning in your life, you need to accept your role as Teacher... and that doesn't mean Preacher! Your task is not so much to answer questions as to raise them. Where there are lies agreed upon, such as racial or gender prejudices, you have the skills -- and bear the burden -- of the truth-sayer.

 Your Lunar Nodes

The soul's journey

Here's a jolly baby. Here's a serious one. An alert one. A dull one. A wise one. Those are common nursery room observations, but they raise a fascinating question: How did that person get in there?

Most of our psychological theory, either technically or in folklore, is developmental theory... abuse a child and he'll grow up to be a child-abuser, for example. But in the eyes of the newborn infant, there is already character. How can that be? One might say it's heredity, and that's certainly at least part of the answer. A large part of the world's population would call it reincarnation -- that baby, for better or worse, represents the culmination of centuries of soul-development in many different bodies. A Fundamentalist might simply announce, "That's how God made the baby." Who's to say? But all three explanations hold one point in common: They all agree that we cannot account for what we observe in a baby's eyes without acknowledging the impact of events occurring before the child's birth.

In astrology, the South Node of the Moon refers to events occurring before your birth, helping us to see what was in your eyes ten seconds after you were born... however we imagine it got in there! The Moon's North Node, always opposite the South Node, refers to your evolutionary future. It's a subtle point, but arguably the most important symbol in astrology. The North Node represents an alien state of consciousness and an unaccustomed set of circumstances. If you open your heart and mind to them, you put maximum tension on the deadening hold of the past.

As we consider the Nodes of the Moon in your birthchart, we'll be using the language of reincarnation. Whether that notion fits your own spiritual beliefs is of course your own business. If it doesn't work for you, please translate the ideas into ancestral hereditary terms. After all, it makes little practical difference whether we speak of a certain farmer weeding his beans a thousand years before the Caesars as your great, great, mega-great grandfather... or as you yourself in a previous incarnation. Either way, he's someone who lived way back there in history who sort of is you, sort of isn't, and lives on inside you--influencing but not ultimately defining you.

At your birth, the South Node of the Moon lay in Aquarius, the sign of the Exile. Anyone looking into your eyes as you took your first breath would have observed the results of lifetimes spent out of kilter with the dominant myths of whatever culture you were living in: independence, detachment, eccentricity -- and a near defensive quickness in justifying those qualities. In previous incarnations, you've had experiences in which you were sustained by little more than a stubborn indifference to public opinion -- that, or a capacity to keep strategic silence. Now, like the prodigal son, you must learn new lessons: trust, an easy bonhomie with the human family, an expectation of love.

That nascent ability to feel at ease with others is symbolized by your North Node of the Moon, which lies in Leo -- the sign of the Performer. As we saw earlier, the North Node can be seen as the most significant point in the entire birthchart. Why? Because it represents your evolutionary future... the ultimate reason you're alive. How can you accomplish this Leonine spiritual work? The "yoga" is easy to say, harder to do: you must overcome the myth of the Exiled Genius inside yourself, release your attachment to the idea that no one understands you, and begin offering your gift to the world. Help yourself by cultivating polished crowd-conscious creative talents. This is the "wrapping" which will give others enthusiasm for the unexpected, sometimes shocking, wisdom you bring.

There's another piece to the puzzle: The Moon's South Node falls in the Eighth House of your chart. This implies that previous to this lifetime you learned a lot about realms of human experience that are often labeled "taboo." You've lived passionately, motivated by intense emotions, especially sexual ones. There's an even chance that long ago you had some training in what we might call magic or shamanism. The dark element in all this is that your spirit has become too heavy, too brooding, for its own good.

In this lifetime, with your North Node of the Moon in the Second House, you must act to counterbalance some of those old passions... not so much because they're "bad" as because you've already learned everything you can from them. The time has come for you to take refuge in a more "normal" kind of life, calming and easing yourself with stability, simplicity, and a reverence for the ordinary.

And that's your birth chart.

Trust it; the symbols are Spirit's message to you. In the course of a lifetime, you'll make a billion choices. Any one of them could potentially hurt you terribly, sending you down a barren road. How can you steer a true course? The answer is so profound that it circles around and sounds trivial: listen to your heart, be true to your soul. Noble words and accurate ones, but tough to follow.

The Universe, in its primal intelligence, seems to understand that difficulty. It supplies us with many external supports: Inspiring religions and philosophies. Dear friends who hold the mirror of truth before us. Omens of a thousand kinds. And, above all, the sky itself, which weaves its cryptic message above each newborn infant.

In these pages, you've experienced one reading of that celestial message as it pertains to you. There are others. You may want to consider sitting with a real astrologer ... micro-chips are fine, but a human heart can still express nuances of meaning that no computer can grasp. You may want to order other reports, ones that illuminate your current astrological "weather," or that analyze important relationships. Best of all, you may choose to learn this ancient language yourself, and begin unraveling your own message in your own words.

Whatever your course, we thank you for your time and attention, and wish you grace for your journey.