What is Astrology?

An Introduction

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So you have decided to enter the world of astrology. Welcome. You are starting a journey toward self-understanding as well as gaining the ability to understand others. Astrology involves the relationship between the larger universe outside you and the personal universe within.  The same energies that function in your personal universe function in the larger one 'out there'. The blueprint we call the horoscope, or the birth chart, plots the energies that flow in your magnetic field. At the moment of birth you took into you body, with the first breath, the vibrations manifest on that day and time at that particular spot on earth. Metaphysically speaking, you decided, based on the cycles and transits that would occur during your lifetime, to be born at a particular time in a particular place.

The birth chart, or natal chart shows our potential and tendencies. As one great teacher said, 'You are not what you are because you were born when you were. You were born when you were, to realize who you are.' It's not because you were born at a certain place and time that you react to influence, but the influence of that moment and that place in space show your potentials that can be actualized during your journey. All anyone can see in a birth chart are a spectrum of potentials and tendencies.

The horoscope is the blueprint of our character. Character is destiny.  There is nothing static in the universe. We can change by changing our attitudes and patterns of behavior. In so doing, we change our destiny. While the blueprint you came in with shows your potential character and personality pattern you are NOT your birth chart. But, an understanding of planetary influences allows you to take your life into your own hands and intelligently and consciously utilize the planetary influence.

The two most important questions a person can ask is 'Who am I?' and 'Why am I here?'. Astrology is one way to help realize the answers. As Socrates said, 'Know thyself.' Astrology deals with symbols. It has its own language and is an art as much as a science. The signs of the zodiac are symbols of energy or forces. The physical planets are the outer forms through which spiritual energies manifest, just as you are an outer form of a spiritual energy in the process of manifesting. 

Consider the horoscope to be a roadmap. You are the traveler, you are not the road or the map or the vehicle doing the traveling.

Reference and suggested reading: Isabel M. Hickey, 'Astrology : a cosmic science: the classic work on spiritual astrology. 

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