The Sky Within

 

 

Planet	Sign	Position	House		House Cusps
Sun	Sagittarius	05°Sg03'	12th		01  20°Sg16'
Moon	Aquarius	15°Aq56'	02nd		02  26°Cp07'
Mercury	Sagittarius	23°Sg20'	01st		03  06°Pi32'
Venus	Capricorn	21°Cp53'	01st		04  11°Ar53'
Mars	Scorpio	12°Sc33'	11th		05  09°Ta02'
Jupiter	Libra	23°Li05'	10th		06  00°Ge42'
Saturn	Sagittarius	15°Sg24'	12th		07  20°Ge16'
Uranus	Leo	11°Le37' R	08th		08  26°Ca07'
Neptune	Scorpio	03°Sc30'	10th		09  06°Vi32'
Pluto	Virgo	02°Vi19'	08th		10  11°Li53'
Midheaven	Libra	11°Li53'	10th		11  09°Sc02'
Ascendant	Sagittarius	20°Sg16'	01st		12  00°Sg42'

 

 

 

 

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 Sagittarius.

To the medieval astrologer, there were three kinds of Sagittarian: the gypsy, the scholar, and the philosopher.  They're all legitimate, healthy parts of the picture.  Sagittarius represents the urge to expand our horizons, to break up the routines that imprison us.  One way to do that is to escape the bonds of the culture into which we were born -- that's the gypsy.  Another is to educate ourselves, to push our intelligence beyond its customary "position papers" -- the way of the scholar.  Finally, our  intuition can stretch outward, trying to come to terms with cosmic law, attempting to grasp the meaning and purpose of life.  That's the philosopher's path.

To keep your Sagittarian energies healthy, you need to feed them an endless supply of fresh experience.  Travel.  Take classes.  Learn to scuba dive.  Amazement feeds the Archer the same way protein feeds your physical body.  Conversely, if there's a cardinal sin for Sagittarius, it is to consciously, willingly allow yourself to be bored.

With your Sun in Sagittarius, freedom is the most precious arrow in your quiver.  You thrive on experience.  Your heart beats faster at the sight of a far horizon.  Your life is a quest... for adventure, for experience, ultimately, for meaning.  The Gypsy, the Scholar, and the Philosopher all play major roles in your interior existence... and need to have major input into your existential shopping list!  There's a Gypsy-like destiny element in your life that presents you again and again with culture shock, like travel or working with people from different backgrounds.  The Scholar manifests as your lifelong desire to learn, to break up your mental routines.  And you've been a Philosopher ever since you were born -- you popped out of your mother's womb wondering, "Why am I here?"

We can take our analysis of your natal Sun a step further. When you were born, that solar light illuminated the Twelfth 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.

Slipping the bonds of ego, letting consciousness expand beyond the narrow framework of personality -- that's the terrain of the Twelfth House.  A planet here stands between you and higher states of consciousness, not as an obstacle but as a bridge.  For that reason, it's helpful to view such a planet as your "Guru" or "Master Teacher."

The very existence of a planet in this part of your chart tells us that in this lifetime you're ready for a quantum leap in awareness.  But to accomplish that, you must practice a very specific "yoga."  What yoga?  That depends on the planets involved.

Before we identify that spiritual discipline, there's one more point -- your planetary "guru" is rather insistent.  If you avoid the methods the Teacher suggests, your poor ego will take some hard knocks.  To the old astrologers, this was the "House of Troubles."  That's a fair description of what's in store for us if we choose to maintain our usual attachments, ignoring the call of the inner worlds.

With the Sun in the Twelfth House, you're learning about nonattachment.  That doesn't necessarily mean poverty, celibacy, and a begging bowl -- those can be attachments too!  Nonattachment means being willing to let go of anything, anytime.  It means recognizing that you're not simply a personality, you're a consciousness, something deeper than all your postures or possessions.  It means putting your inner life on the front burner all the time.  Nonattachment, then, is an inner attitude, not an outward condition.

When you fail to maintain that lofty state, "bad luck" will intervene: the thing you're stuck on will be taken from you.  That's why, centuries ago, astrologers named this sector of the birthchart the House of Troubles.  What they forgot to add is that the troubles are optional.

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 Second house of your chart.

Traditionally, the Second House is the House of Money.  That's true, but the issues here are much broader.  This is the House of Resources, and resources aren't always financial.  If you're lost in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia, at two in the morning, you'll probably feel pretty insecure.  If you have a thousand dollars in your pocket, that'll help; you'll feel more legitimate.  The money is a resource, and it produces the classic Second House effect: helping you feel more confident. But speaking fluent Serbo-Croatian would do the same; knowing the language is a terrific resource, even though no one will give you a nickel for it.

Your Second House energies feel awkward, as if everyone is staring at them.  Dignity and self-esteem are the issues here.  The solution isn't some "We all God's chillin'" formula for uncritical self-love.  Instead, it's a process of recognizing your deficiencies objectively and seeking to correct them: proving yourself to yourself, in other words.

With the Moon in the Second House, feeling confidence in yourself does not come automatically; you've had to work at it.  How?  A lot depends on what we just learned a few seconds ago -- the activities connected with the sign your Moon occupies play a terrific role in helping you feel worthy of the good things in life.  Add to that formula the classic lunar strategy: nurturing.  If you find something -- a person, an animal, an institution -- that's wounded in some way and you manage to bring it back from the brink of disaster, you're feeding your Moon and thereby deepening your elemental dignity.  The pitfall, of course, lies in not letting go of the thing you're healing even after it's well.  Avoid that, and you'll be fine.

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, Sagittarius was lifting over the eastern horizon of New York,New York. Let's begin our analysis by considering the meaning and spiritual message of the sign of "The Gypsy".

As we saw earlier, Sagittarius is the Gypsy.  Superficially, it represents adventuresomeness, independence, and philosophical curiosity.  More deeply, it symbolizes a set of evolutionary steps leading to the realization that life is fundamentally a quest.

With Sagittarius rising, you present a bright, breezy, self-confident face to the world.  You seem to be alert and engaged with your environment, full of questions -- and the energy to pursue the answers.  You radiate a straightforward, robust spirit of independence.  What you need in order to feel centered and at ease is a sense of infinite possibility around you.  When responsibilities tie you down to routines, you get edgy.  Circumstances like that bring out the worst in you: an aloof, uncaring energy that makes people near you feel as though you don't think they're very important.  You are in the right relationship to the physical world when you're convinced that mind-expanding surprises lie just over the horizon.  So nourish yourself with travel, with adventure, with an openness to life.  Do it, and you'll feel stronger and more at ease with yourself.

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 Sagittarius with the Moon in Aquarius and Sagittarius 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 Gypsy", or "The Scholar", or "The Philosopher". Those are just different ways of saying you have the Sun in Sagittarius.

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 Gypsy", or "The Scholar", or "The Philosopher". Those images capture the spirit of your Ascendant, which is Sagittarius.

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.

We find exactly that situation in your case. Mercury lies in your First House, a part of the chart which is really just an extension of the Ascendant. Thus, Mercury adds yet another tone to your "mask," modifying and deepening some of what we've already seen.

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 soaring in Sagittarius. This combination links your mental functions to the exploratory, speculative, adventuresome logic of the Gypsy archetype. Intellectually you are curious, full of desire for wonder and amazement -- and the urge to convert it into philosophical understanding. Spiritually you are learning about the soul's absolute need for an endless, voracious diet of new experience.

With the traditional "Messenger of the Gods" occupying your First House, people's first impression of you is that you're a quick-witted person, radiating alertness and mental acuity. From an evolutionary perspective, you center yourself most effectively when you avoid boredom and mental stagnation as though they were dreadful viruses.

There's even more going on in this part of your birthchart. Also found here is Venus.

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 Capricorn. Thus, both your aesthetic sensitivity and your taste in partners is shaped by the stoic, austere spirit of the Lord of Winter. In the realm of beauty, whether natural or wrought by human hands, you have a taste for the spare and functional, for the sun-bleached purity of windblown rock. The same goes for friends and sexual partners -- you appreciate quiet individuals with character and integrity, and when you make a promise to them, you keep it... and expect the same.

With Venus in the First House, you are blessed with a kind of animal magnetism. People seem instantly to trust you, to feel as though there's rapport between you. You are instinctively courteous -- that is, you mold your behavior in such a way that others are put at ease. From an evolutionary perspective, you center yourself most effectively when you identify yourself as a peacemaker or an artist.

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

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 boundary-shattering terrain of Sagittarius 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 Archer's shadow side: a tendency to spend years denying one's natural need for risk and adventure, only to release it all in one glorious existential pratfall. Will yourself toward a robust engagement in life. And support that journey in practical, Saturnian terms by fortifying yourself with the concrete skills and strategies a gambler needs in order to survive -- especially ones pertinent to Saturn's House in your birthchart. Which House was that?

The Twelfth! The arena of life where we experience self-transcendence... either voluntarily in the form of inner disciplines or involuntarily in the form of personal catastrophes that rob us of ego-support. With Saturn here, you've reached a stage in the spiritual journey that calls for total commitment, profound vows, and a willingness to sacrifice all other concerns. Fasting may be appropriate for you. Or vows of celibacy or simplicity. It's as though Spirit appears at the foot of your bed and says, "All... or nothing."

Your birthchart displays another area of heightened activity: the Tenth House. The reason for that is simple -- there's a lot of planetary activity. With Jupiter and Neptune 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.

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.

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 Libra. 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 Harmony. First, relax. Then let your eyes rest on something lovely -- a painting, a sunset, a sloop reaching across the whitecapped bay. Then go find a dear, caring friend, and enjoy the solace of refined companionship.

In your chart, the "King of the Gods" reigns in the Tenth House -- traditionally the "House of Honor." In the old days, this meant "power, glory, and riches." Better said, your whole life will be a long meditation on the true meaning of the word "success." Red carpets will be rolled out for you, but not all of them lead to joy or meaning. Behind the glitz, you are learning some hard-edged lessons about discrimination, and about the ephemeral nature of worldly glory. Ultimately, your "cosmic job description" suggests one overriding principle: you were born to play the role of the Wise Clown; that is, the one who inspires us with hope, faith, and pie-eyed joy.

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 Tenth House of your birthchart, where its mystical feelings are linked to questions of your status in the world and to larger issues of destiny and purpose in your life. To become the kind of person who can fulfill the outer purpose for which you were created, you must first turn your back on the attractions of status. Why? Because your destiny, if you choose to accept it, is to function as a kind of spiritual inspiration for your community... and there's no way to fill those shoes if you're still attached to looking important!

Your birthchart shows still another area where planets congregate: the Eighth. By combining forces, Uranus and Pluto emphasize that department of your life almost as powerfully as the Sun or Moon would.

In the Eighth House you experience three basic human instincts in a radically heightened way. The first instinct is sexual -- not simply having intercourse, but also allowing yourself to bond fully with a partner, letting the primal sexual "program" in your deep psyche manifest, riding the roller coaster, trusting it, even though noÿone can completely understand it.

Death is the second Eighth House instinct. Again, we let ourselves flow with something deep within us, learning consciously something that our cells know automatically -- that death, like sex, is just another biological roller coaster, spooky maybe, but worthy of trust... which leads directly to the third instinct: our sense of immortality. Something deep and trans-rational in us knows there is a realm beyond death. Life has an "occult" dimension -- that is, a hidden one. Without an acceptance of that intuitive feeling, we live forever under a shadow of futility and foreboding.

You have lessons here. Let's consider them.

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 Death -- that's the old name for the Eighth House, where your Uranus lies. The issues are broader; not just death, but the whole realm of instinct, and most especially, your sexuality. Uranus is your Teacher here and the lessons can be summarized this way: sexuality plays a pivotal role, positively or negatively, in your spiritual journey. To be true to yourself in that department, you must break some cultural taboos. One piece of that puzzle is that your natural sexual soulmates are probably not quite the folks mom and dad had in mind for you...

"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 gleamed in the Eighth House... a part of the natal chart concerned especially with sexuality and with death. It is essential that you make contact, however brief or long term, with soulmates with whom you share insights about two processes: mating and dying. Through these intense encounters, your being is transformed -- and the capacity to fulfill your transpersonal mission arises. What is that mission? To counsel people in the face of death and separations.

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.

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 is burning in Scorpio. Passionate intensity simmers in your heart, glows in your eyes. The Warrior within you is crawling through psychic labyrinths, bursting through easy lies, ripping away the social veneer that covers the staggering truths of life. Trouble is, not everyone enjoys it when you apply that kind of scrutiny to them! Spiritually we can add one element to your inner search -- you need to find a handful of people who can handle the full power of your passion and reflect it back to you.

With the War-God occupying your Eleventh House, as you mature, your nature and circumstances will increasingly reflect the spirit of the red planet. You'll get tougher and more adventuresome... or, if you make a lot of cowardly choices, you'll slip into bitterness, which is the dark Mars. Here's another piece of the puzzle: You have to sparkplug an "army" of people with whom you share a basic value. That "army" is organized against some hostile force, inimical to the survival of that value.

 

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 Taurus, the sign of the Earth Spirit. Anyone looking into your eyes as you took your first breath would have observed the results of lifetimes spent learning the wisdom of the Earth: practicality, an instinctive harmony with animals and plants, a respect for silence and simplicity. You've grown peaceful and solid. You've attained a state we might call "goodness." But now you must release your attachment to that solidity and clarity. Now you must open your heart to new levels of intensity, change, and moral ambiguity inside yourself.

That nascent ability to come to terms with the shadowy, explosive sides of your own psyche is symbolized by the North Node of the Moon, which lies in Scorpio -- the sign of the Hypnotist. 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, in other words. How can you accomplish this Scorpionic spiritual work? The "yoga" is easy to say, harder to do: you must overcome your attachment to the "goodness" in yourself, and begin seeking something else -- your wholeness.

There's another piece to the puzzle: The Moon's South Node falls in the Fifth House of your chart. This implies that previous to this lifetime you lived out the notion that "the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." There has developed in your spirit a spontaneous immediacy... creative and joyful, but vulnerable to the life-derailing effects of whimsy and self-indulgence.

In this lifetime, with your North Node of the Moon in the Eleventh House, you must act to counterbalance those whimsical, self-indulgent tendencies... 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 authority over the shape of your own life, establishing your own goals and priorities, determining in advance what kind of elderly person you'll become. Finish what you start!

 

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.