THE SKY WITHIN

Report for Lama, Dalai

An Interpretation of Your Birth Chart

by

Steven Forrest

 

 

 

 

 

The Sky Within

 

 

Planet	Sign	Position	House		House Cusps
Sun	Cancer	12°Ca55'	01st		01  06°Ca39'
Moon	Virgo	09°Vi37'	03rd		02  27°Ca25'
Mercury	Gemini	25°Ge31'	12th		03  20°Le00'
Venus	Leo	28°Le14'	03rd		04  17°Vi40'
Mars	Libra	18°Li16'	04th		05  22°Li32'
Jupiter	Scorpio	13°Sc28' R	05th		06  01°Sg28'
Saturn	Pisces	10°Pi03' R	09th		07  06°Cp39'
Uranus	Taurus	04°Ta58'	11th		08  27°Cp25'
Neptune	Virgo	12°Vi17'	03rd		09  20°Aq00'
Pluto	Cancer	25°Ca16'	01st		10  17°Pi40'
Midheaven	Pisces	17°Pi40'			11  22°Ar32'
Ascendant	Cancer	06°Ca39'			12  01°Ge28'

 

 

 

 

© Copyright 1985-2003 Matrix Software, Inc.

 

 

 

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 Cancer.

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 the Sun in Cancer, you feed your solar vitality by finding a role in the world in which you address the hurt in the lives of other beings.  You become a nurturer or a healer of some sort.

You also need to make sure that you have enough real intimacy and quiet, private time to "nurture the nurturer" -- yourself, in other words.

Those methods strengthen your sense of identity.  They trigger higher states of awareness in you.  If you don't express your soothing wound-binding instincts, all the glories of the world would leave you feeling like an imposter in your own life.  And without quiet time and naked intimate honesty, you'll quickly burn out on playing the role of everyone's psychotherapist.

Like the crab, you're a vulnerable creature who's evolved a shell.  That's fine and necessary.  But again like the crab, you must eventually shed your shell and grow a larger, more inclusive one, or you'll be awfully cramped.

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

Stories always have two dimensions: plot and character.  But on a deeper level the concepts merge.  "Janie is shy."  How do we know?  "She walked into the room and didn't speak to anyone."  Character is defined through action; action implies character -- that is, needs, desires, and values.  In the First House, the territory you face is the plotting of your life -- and therefore the definition of your character.

First House energies "act out" a lot.  They're a visible, dramatic, well-developed part of your nature.  For that reason, this is a part of your life where people think you have a real gift for leadership.  They're right -- but it doesn't always feel that way to you.  How to get it right?  Easy -- trust your instincts.  Be yourself.  A good plot proceeds from a sound, coherent character.

With your Sun in the First House, there's a lot of punch to your style.  People tend to be impressed by you, to remember you.  In fact, you sometimes have to make an effort to avoid overwhelming them.  That charisma and apparent self-assurance masks the evolutionary issue you face: creating a destiny.  Because, unlike most people, you were born without one!  The "hand of fate" plays a minimal role in your life.  There's a frightening freedom built into this solar position.  It all boils down to the words of St.ÿAugustine, "Love God, and do what you will."

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 Virgo.

Virginity isn't the point.  That's just a kind of inexperience, and in the long run no one learns much from avoiding experience.  Virgo means purity.  Perfection.  Getting everything exactly right.  That's a tall order.  Perfection is a harsh master.  It drives the Virgoan part of you, haunting you with a sense of what could be, a sense of the ideal.  It also holds a flawless mirror before you, revealing all the imperfections and shortfalls in your character.  The combination is powerful.  It fills your spirit with hunger and divine discontent, imbueing you with restlessness, as though you'd taken out an insurance policy against complacency.  Be careful, though: Virgo energies can self-destruct, slipping into a crippling hyper-awareness regarding all the flaws and shortfalls inherent in people, oneself, our possessions, our prospects -- everything.  And nothing kills our climb toward perfection faster than that.

With your Moon in Virgo, your instincts are analytical, always searching for weaknesses and flaws.  People can misunderstand that, and imagine you to be "negative" or "hyper-critical."  Those problems are real possibilities for you, but only when you're not taking care of yourself.  When you're healthy, there's a constructive aspect to your perceptions, as though you're constantly straining to improve things.  Ultimately, the only kinds of people with whom you can be comfortable are ones who are willing to see themselves objectively, call a spade a spade, and proceed in reasonable ways to change their characters or circumstances.  You don't have much patience with pretty words that aren't linked to sincere, concrete promises.

To be happy, it helps you a lot to have some kind of hands-on hobby or craft, something that calls for skill, precision, and knowledge.

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

Learning to see what's before your eyes -- that's Third House territory.  Traditionally, this is the House of Communication.  Perception might be a better word.  The words on this page are "communicating" with you.  But so does the blueness of the sky and the warmth of a friend's touch. Through your perceptions, the universe floods you with a continuous storm of raw information.  Trouble is, we tend to miss most of it.  How?  By filtering it through the thick mesh of our preconceived notions and pet theories, often symbolized astrologically by whatever planets lie in this part of the birthchart.

The evolutionary question you're facing in this House is simple... to say.  Can you keep a radically open mind?  Can you really see what is before your eyes?  Can you bleach your senses as clean as buffalo bones in the desert?

Spirit has given you intelligence and a capacity to communicate.  It's given you curiosity.  The discipline here is talking -- and listening.  Experiencing -- and digesting.  Understanding -- and endlessly questioning your understanding.

With the Moon in the Third House, all your perceptions are filtered through the lens of your subjectivity.  The question isn't "What's out there?"  It's "How do I feel about what's out there?"  That makes for an imaginative, uniquely personal set of views and opinions, but you'd make a better poet than scientist.  At your best, you're a wonderful teacher and storyteller, gently bringing people along on your mental journey, nurturing their understanding.  At your worst, be careful of putting so much emotional intensity into what you're saying that people get confused, shut down, and miss the logic of your point.

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 Tengster Village, Ti. Let's begin our analysis by considering the meaning and spiritual message of the sign of "The Healer".

As we saw earlier, Cancer is the Healer or the Fantasy-Weaver.  Superficially, it represents inwardness and sensitivity.  More deeply, it symbolizes a set of evolutionary steps leading to the development of profound psychological understanding and the capacity to bind the wounds of others.

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 Cancer with the Moon in Virgo 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 Healer", or "The Wise One", or "The Invisible One". Those are just different ways of saying you have the Sun in Cancer.

We can say you have the soul of "The Perfectionist", or "The Analyst", or "The Servant"... your Moon lies in Virgo, 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.

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

"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 Cancer. Thus the shadow material you are called upon to face has to do with the dark side of the Crab archetype: hiding from life. In what part of your life or personal history have you chosen safety over experience, the appearance of love over the steamy reality of shared growth, security over magic? (If you answer is "Nowhere!" then congratulations... you're Enlightened... or not looking hard enough.)

At the moment of your birth, Pluto stood in the First House just below the eastern horizon--about to "dawn." In exactly the same way, you "dawn" on people in a Plutonian way: intensely. It's pivotally important that you find some larger framework of purpose for your life... or else all that intensity with which you were born will dissipate itself first in pointless drama, then in bitterness.

The lunar dimensions of your astrological signature are deepened by planetary overtones. At the instant your independent physical life began, the planet Neptune was conjunct the Moon -- aligned with it, in other words. As a result, we cannot discuss your emotions and instincts without including the notion that your Soul is charged with the spirit of Neptune, as though that ancient "god" lived inside you.

Our first step, of course, is to get aquainted with this new element in the puzzle.

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 Virgo. Thus, to trigger higher states of consciousness in yourself and to stimulate your psychic development, you may choose to follow the Path of the Servant... that is consciously, intentionally to seek the perfection of those skills and virtues in yourself which benefit others. Without exposure to the purifying, soul-bleaching effects of selfless service, you tend to drift away from Spirit, losing yourself in the mazes of daily life -- or in the subtle ego-traps of meditation.

Neptune, planet of transcendence, occupies the Third House of your birthchart, where its mystical feelings are linked to questions of communication and perception. You have the mind -- and voice -- of a poet. That is, you naturally think and speak in terms of symbols and innuendo. This is a strength, but our culture doesn't value it much. Be careful you don't let society trick you into thinking there's something wrong with your mind! You're a visionary, and you grow spiritually when you take steps to put that vision into a form that can be shared.

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

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 Leo. Thus, both your aesthetic sensitivity and your taste in partners is shaped by the dramatic, playful, self-expressive spirit of the Lion. In the realm of beauty, whether natural or wrought by human hands, you have a taste for the monumental, for the lofty goal fully realized. The same goes for friends and sexual partners -- you appreciate people who express themselves with magnanimity and style, people who are unafraid of their own power -- and unafraid of yours too.

With Venus in the Third House, your speech is graceful and gentle. You could read the phone book to a person in pain, and he or she would be soothed by it. Cultivate the poet in yourself, the weaver of metaphors. You have an uncanny sense of the rhythm of language and of how to find the right words to make difficult truths bearable.

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.

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 fantastical terrain of Pisces 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 Fishes' shadow side: escapism, perhaps even addiction in any of its ten thousand forms. Make your dreams real! That's your high road. And 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 Ninth! The arena of life where we break up routines, stretching our mental horizons with travel, education, and dizzy new perspectives. With Saturn here, plan your escape as though you were a prisoner plotting a jailbreak. What are you escaping? Yourself, basically. Or at least the unnatural limits you've placed on yourself. Overcome resistance and "practicality." There's an expedition in your destiny pattern, a pilgrimage. Accept it.

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 lies in civil Libra. It's as though the Warrior has gone to charm school! Libra is peaceful, diplomatic, consensus-seeking. Reflexively, your Mars pursues reconciliation, mutual understanding. But there's one offense that fires your rage: that's willful injustice. Spiritually you are learning a lot about building bridges of respect and fairness -- without slipping into the trap of hollow forgiveness and whitewashed grudges.

With the War-God occupying your Fourth House, there's fire buried deep inside you. When we strip away the layers of your psychological onion and bare the core, we find the Warrior or the Crusader or the Adventurer--passion, in other words. From an evolutionary perspective, it is essential that you express those qualities behaviorally, or they'll back up inside you, turning to seething anger and eventually into depression.

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 Taurus, the process of individuation for you is tied up with the Path of the Earth Spirit. That is to say, you strengthen and clarify your own Uranian identity through deepening your bond with nature -- and without that you're likely to clog up your life with unnecessary conservatism. Consciously chosen forays into the natural world, such as hiking, gardening, or close association with animals, 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 Friends -- that's the old name for the Eleventh House, where your Uranus lies. The issues are broader; not just friends, but also the framework of goals and priorities by which you orient your life. Uranus is your Teacher here and the lessons can be summarized this way: the older you get, the stranger you get! You are on a diverging course from the social mainstream, and you come into increasing conflict with the "tyranny of the normal" as you mature. Trust your path! You have a unique gift for the human family, but you're not ready to offer it until you reach the second half of your life.

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 in heaven -- which is to say it is in Gemini, its favorite sign. This is a powerful, natural, combination which massively stimulates your curiosity and your enthusiasm for the pleasures of the mind: knowledge, witticism, intelligent conversation. Spiritually you are learning about the difficulties of keeping your mind radically open when you're so good at constructing convincing -- and maybe addictive -- theories.

With the traditional "Messenger of Gods" occupying your Twelfth House, your intelligence is much concerned with the investigation of consciousness itself. You trigger greater psychic sensitivity and spiritual awareness in yourself when you flood your senses with incongruous, surprising, stimulating information or questions: What's the sound of one hand clapping? The trick here lies in using the intellect to trip the intellect.

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 Scorpio. 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 the Sorcerer. Go walking under the moon in a hard wind. Fill your house with candlelight. Get lost in the eyes of another soul who shares some of your humility before the awesome mysteries of existence.

In your chart, the "King of the Gods" reigns in the Fifth House -- traditionally the "House of Children." Your nature is playful and self-expressive, and the "inner child" is vibrant inside you. Creativity comes naturally... but, spiritually, you are learning how to use it correctly. Sincerity and risk are the keys; without them, you'll produce a technicolor personality and lots of applause, but little else. The archetype that's trying to break through you is not simply the Bard... it's the Wise Bard.

 

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 Cancer, the sign of the Great Mother. Anyone looking into your eyes as you took your first breath would have observed the results of lifetimes spent learning the ways of the Healer: nurturing, caring, an ability to attune yourself instantly to a person's deepest wounds. You've grown compassionate, but now--like a lonely psychotherapist--you must learn a new lesson: how to see to it that your own needs are met.

 

That nascent ability to meet your own needs is symbolized by your North Node of the Moon, which lies in Capricorn -- the sign of the Hermit. 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 Capricornian spiritual work? The "yoga" is easy to say, harder to do: you must temper some of your nurturing instincts and consciously release your attachment to the idea that others depend upon you. That is, you need to intentionally place yourself in situations where you're watching out for yourself, pursuing your own projects, and letting others take care of themselves.

There's another piece to the puzzle: The Moon's South Node falls in the First House of your chart. This implies that previous to this lifetime you had accumulated considerable experience as a leader. That sounds glorious, and maybe it was. But now the evolutionary issue is that you had centuries in which the buck stopped with you, and you had no one to whom you could turn. This bred self-containment, but also a terrible burden of isolation.

In this lifetime, with your North Node of the Moon in the Seventh House, you must act to counterbalance some of that focus on self-sufficiency... not because it's "wrong," but because you've already learned everything you can from it. The time has come for you to concentrate on listening and learning, accepting the alien wisdom of your soulmates, weaving it into your own wisdom. Two moves are essential: one is finding partners whom you honestly respect, and the second is letting them change you.

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.