Astrology and the Spiritual Narrative
What is your story? Right now, holding this book in your hand at this time in your life, what is your story? Are you single, involved, married, divorced, widowed? Do you like, love, tolerate your job or do you need one? Is the world an amazing place, going to hell in a hand basket, an endless drudgery, a temporary stop on the way to spiritual enlightenment? Are you young, middle aged, old, young-at-heart, old-at-heart, an excited old soul, or a weary youthful soul? Do you have children, or grandchildren? In essence, we are the stories we tell others and our selves, interacting in a world full of stories, some directly impacting us and many we will never know. When people come to me for an astrology reading, they come with their stories. The story starting points I encounter most revolve around relationship, work, family, and self-discovery or self-improvement. For one client the relationship question has to do with a new relationship and another client will see me about one ending. The astrology reading people come to get is also a story, one based on the time of birth, the date of birth, and the location of birth and how astronomical bodies in the solar system were arranged at the moment they took their first breath. People arrive at my office because they are experiencing a dramatic change in their story, they want to make a change in their story, or they want a deeper understanding of their story; they seek and need an alternative narrative to hold up against their current narrative in order to evaluate who they are, why they are, and where they want to go next.
So here is the key question for you, “Is your current story working for you?” Are certain stories within your larger story working while others are failing? Is your romantic relationship fantastic, but your career struggling? Maybe you have unresolved issues regarding the family you grew up with while the family you have made is doing wonderfully. Astrology recognizes the complexity of the human spirit and consciousness and is complex enough to help you appreciate what is working for you in life, understand what is not, and offer explanations that can help you maintain and improve your strengths and overcome and resolve your weaknesses. Astrology is simply one of the most powerful explanatory models regarding human behavior, spirituality, and life purpose available to you. Every philosophy, political position, social framework, psychology, and “ism” (capitalism, socialism, communism, and so on) offers a model to explain life. Some are quite narrow, fundamentalism and racism, while others are much broader, liberalism and utilitarianism … and the world accommodates them all. But they are not all equally successful, useful, or morally defensible. Racism continually fails every time a member of the denigrated race excels. Feminism has effectively shown light on the dehumanizing and objectification of women in the media, religions, literature, the workforce, and on and on in every world culture. And science, with the scientific method, has gained more ground and had more enduring and positive outcomes in a short period of time than any other explanatory model in existence. Astrology, at its best, is one of the best explanatory models for life purpose, spiritual direction, and soul growth because it offers a broad and deep world view, which continues to adapt and grow with new astronomical discoveries and new innovations in chart interpretation.
Astrology is not a scientific tool, but rather a narrative one, available for use during your spiritual journey; one that relies on astronomical data to construct the skeleton of a story, as shown in the symbols of the astrology chart. The astrology chart and its spiritual narrative unlock the “whys” behind actual events that come to make up the lived narrative of your physical, psychological, and emotional experiences in this lifetime. The “whys” generally reflect two energies that apply to your life: 1) why you feel compelled to act, feel, and think in certain ways that affect outcomes in life (asserting your will in life) and 2) why you attract certain experiences, people, and situations to you for spiritual and life lessons (encountering your fate) .
Astrology uses the Earth as the central astronomical body and your geographic point of birth as the centermost point of the chart display. Based on the date and time of your birth event, the location of all astronomical bodies (and various calculated points) are identified and marked by glyphs in the chart. Imaging a working three dimensional holographic model of the solar system in front of you and scaled to fit inside the range of your peripheral vision that is synced up with the actual movements and placements of the astronomical bodies the year of your birth. Earth is your focal point, and on the day you were born, at the time you took your first breath, you see a red dot light up on the holographic earth image at the location you were born. At that moment the holographic model stops, giving you a three dimensional snapshot of the solar system when you were born. You have your holographic model generator hooked up to your printer, which does not print in 3D, so when you select to print your chart the three dimensional snapshot is compressed down to a two dimensional representation that is the astrology chart you get from a computer program or professional astrologer. Every symbol in the chart represents a meaning, including the numbers assigned to the Houses and the actual degrees on the wheel of the chart . These meanings provide the rich details that make up the particular narrative that is the foundation of your astrological story. Once the snapshot has been taken, the solar system continues its movements and its story continues to unfold. Only … now you have entered the cosmic drama and will have a part in the larger story that will unfold as your particular life unfolds.