As I Marvel at Astrology Weaving Deeply Through Us.

So I assume we all have these small revelations in our lives where, in the middle of some seemingly mundane moment – walking through a park, cooking dinner – we seem to slip for a second over to the other side of the veil. Then we come back and all we have is the memory of the feeling of it. And when we try to express it, articulate it in words, we look at the words and they don’t seem able to contain that small revelation you’re trying to capture. The words just look like words, the point they’re making seems so obvious and “merely interesting.” Like a dream that holds profound feeling and significance for you, but when you tell it to your friends it sounds like just another story.

I had one lf those yesterday, astrology-related. It made me feel just how deeply the themes of astrology seem to constitute our lives. “Constitute” may be a cumbersome and even pretentious word to throw in there, but it’s the only word I can think of it. I mean “constituted” in the sense that a thing is essential made of this stuff. Like how a tree is constituted of wood. Broccoli is constituted of plant cells. The stuff we’re made of.

I had this moment where I felt completely constituted of stuff that I can see in my chart. To which everybody on an astrology chat site says “Well, no s#*t, Sherlock!” But it still struck me. It’s not a cosmetic make up. Not surface... or even a few layers down. It’s who I am. In a way I can’t get away from any more than a tree can get away from being wood. (It's not cosmetic, but it might be cosmic.)
And I want to share it with you as quickly as I can. Then invite/ask anybody interested to help me try and see what life looks like and feels like for you, reflecting your chart make-up.

Here’s the “small revelation,” as utterly without revelation as these words will seem:

I’ve been struggling to write a paper for about three weeks now. I’ve been locked in with it like a matador in the horns of a bull. I’ve sat 24/7 at a computer for the last week and a half, and I’ve slept on average three hours a night. The feeling I have right now is that of a boxer fighting a dangerous opponent but I simply will not go down because I’m the hero of this story and I know that eventually I will win this battle.
In a flash moment I realized that the general feeling I’ve just described is how I approach all of life. At my age many people have come to a spot where they want to just rest and be the person they’ve created for themselves. They’ve “arrived” at who they are going to become and now they can enjoy just being that person. But I’m realizing I will never be like that. I am always in motion, always in crisis, driving to some future point. I see the condition of being alive as a boxing match, and I am in the 4th or 5th round.
There’s nothing cosmetic or alterable about this for me. Part of the “small revelation” was to realize that this is not a layer to my personality. It’s the wood I’m constituted by. Whether my life is actually always in a state of driving forward, in a kind of perpetual crisis, isn’t the point. The point is that I approach life this way. I seem to need it that way. I am of that flavor. I'm not fighting with this paper, for example, because it actually is a bull. Several of my friends could have done this in a very different way. I'm fighting with it because that's how I do it.

And a second part of the “small revelation:” This sounds pretty Aries. I recall the write up on Aries Stephen Forrest gives in the Inner Sky, where he describes the energy as the archetype of constantly facing, and facing up to, crisis. Somebody I once knew described Aries energy as an infant plant striving to poke through the concrete to live, or a baby snake fighting to break the egg shell. That tremendous, furious push for life in a world filled with ways to die.
As it turns out, I’m an Aries Sun/Moon (with Venus thrown in that conjunction for good measure). And I think there’s a Mars/Pluto theme going on – with my Aries planets in the 8th house and Pluto in my 1st house – which I admit probably adds a certain obsessiveness to the crisis energy.

Again, I realize this is a “small revelation” that doesn’t seem so revelatory to a bunch of astrologers. It’s like the dream you feel deeply but then you tell it and it just sounds like a bunch of words. But to have a moment where I actually felt the total depth to which the themes in my chart seem to be constituting who I am: I just wanted to share it.

And I wanted to ask you this: I would love to hear about your fundamental approach to the world and how it is reflected in your chart. I ask because I know lots of people don’t fundamentally approach the world in the way I just described. I imagine a lot of people read that and thought "wow, I couldn't or wouldn't want to live that way." And I'd love to hear more about what your life is like - your deep assumptions and approaches to the world - and, most importantly, how that approach seems to be reflected in their charts.
I'm thinking this might be a good way to really grasp what it feel like to have far more Cancer influence or Leo influence, for example, than my chart has.

Teach me.

Re: As I Marveling at Astrology Weaving Deep Through Us

You're asking for a full analysis?

Re: As I Marveling at Astrology Weaving Deep Through Us

O.k., some regulars are exempt because reading their answer would be like drinking from a firehose!!!

I'm afraid of what I might learn

Re: As I Marveling at Astrology Weaving Deep Through Us

Birch Dragon said:

O.k., some regulars are exempt because reading their answer would be like drinking from a firehose!!!

I'm afraid of what I might learn


p.s. Is there some way to change the title? I meant to write "Weaving Deeply Through Us."
"Weaving Deep" throws off the poetic feel i was going for.

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OK..... its like ROTFLMFAO Time. Yeah, I can see the drinking from a firehose thing. I'll have to add that to my agreement that I send by PM for online forum analyses!

Re: As I Marveling at Astrology Weaving Deep Through Us

One of my best friends has Aries Sun, NN and Jupiter conjunct MC from the 9th house, all square 6th house Neptune, and 10th house Aries Moon. Her core seems to revolve around showing strength in all she does (Leo rising). She will not be beaten by anything, and integrity and justice drive her. She has a deep rage due to feeling life has not given her what she was owed, has dealt her a bad hand. The world seems to keep beating her down every time she fights back, but she keeps fighting. The rage will probably always be there, but she's refining it slowly, turning into something she can use instead of something that uses her. Making sure her battles serve others instead of herself is one way she is doing this. She's very interested in the "new" socialism and war history, even participating in some political activity. She has the chart of a war general or dictator, honestly. Taurus Mars in 11th, to top it off.

Improperly communicated mundane realizations were basically my entire childhood (when the mundane is still new). I'd look at the sky and see how big it was. I would tell others, "The sky is so big!" and they would nod and say, "yes it is, little girl". But no, I meant... my body was falling away in awe of the vast expanse of space in front of me. There isn't a word in English for the "space" I was experiencing. My being was transported into it, completely open and raw, and I realized how limited a cage it was in the presence of the sky. But how does a 6 year old say all that? "The sky is big" seemed a trivial thing to say, but I was not aware of that at the time.

And that is where I can answer your question. If I were to give myself a verb to sum up my fundamental approach to the world, it would be "I understand". My life revolves around making myself understood in a way, and sometimes I worry it makes me self-centered, but it's a desire for communication that has been so inadequate through my life. I approach the world always trying to understand it. If I can understand, everything will be okay. If I can be understood, everything will be okay. And it's those moments where understanding utterly and completely fails that has brought much grief, heartache, transformation and changes in perception in my life.

I remember one moment, in particular, when I came up against a woman who defied all reason and logic and whose behavior was so destructive, and all my attempts to understand her so I could communicate with her didn't work. Finally she said something to me that was so insane, so out of my comprehension, that I realized I was dealing with a monster of a human being, and that I could never understand or help her. I actually broke as a person in that moment (eh, sorry to be so heavy but it illustrates the point well). It's the curse of Sun/Merc and Moon opposition in 3rd and 9th houses, squared Pluto, I'm sure. Mercury being the chart ruler and in Leo, the sign of "I will" ... so it becomes "I will understand" which breaks and breaks under Pluto's influence and is rebuilt again.

I'm curiously awaiting further responses to this. I love your question and story, Birch Dragon (as always). Your "perpetual crisis" does seem to be a Pluto thing, but Aries/Pluto combination can be very powerful indeed!

Public Announcement:
SUPER THANK YOU to our site's super Administrators. pwadm corrected the grammatically garbled chaos I originally butchered the title of this thread with. My Virgo Rising thanks you (grammar fascist) and my Pisces Mercury saves you (poetry flow).
EDIT: That's supposed to be "my Pisces Mercury thanks you," but there's something about subconsciously writing "my Pisces Mercury saves you" that I just have to keep it in there...!)

I have great resonance to what you posted so much that I had to sign on. I'll start with the idea of Sigmund Frued's free association to approach your idea of the constitute. People freely project to the world their software they use. And so I looked at your piece around the new word that you were reaching for, what you called constitute.

Here is a second point of attraction (I'm versed in Abraham Hicks) that I saw reading though your piece. I would like to use the metaphor of the car and when your energy is flowing you can reach the plateau of that word you're actually reaching for. But doesn't it hit the breaks when you go to try and explain something and judge yourself and your audience for what you know you're going to have a hard time coming to a resonance of understanding. On the Libra scales you weigh the distance "they're too dumb, I'm too gone" and you then reflect from that lower story to try to pull people up to the new understanding when in reality by centering there you pull yourself down. But yet we have to do that boxer in the ring, bloody Aries birth thing to steal fire from the God's so to speak and "catch" that idea. I did catch it! And it's fun to then adjust the timings and the synchronicities of your life to that Capricorn mountain top. Happy Libra moon by the way.

Here is the third point of attraction after establishing not the word but the very wavelength of understanding the part you call the astrology that weaves deeply through us. Like you said you spend some time there and then you jump off the wavelength and then you can't get on. I'm very raw in that power in that I know about it, I understand astrology and timing but I don't quiet no how to ride that horse. But I can add several layers of information that will guide you in being able to identify that wavelength of which I too have resonance of the astrology constituting through your experience a greater tap of wisdom in the moment.

I'll start by saying I see very clear picture of these plateau's being emotional. Those emotional plateaus have a speed and that emotional world has more access the faster moving the emotion. I saw somewhere it takes 20Hz to generate an action and 40Hz to enter a serenity of being. And so here I'm going to give away my software the very software speed and cadence of emotion/thoughts that I am running that is in resonance with what you posted. It's a song on Coldplay's album Parachuets called "Sparks." And instantly I understood the faster vibration moves, the more access you have per the people you are attracted to or resonate with. And so these sparks can increase with more frequency once you deliberately practice these emotions. These grow into new territory as you find a high tree to approach all this. The more emotional resonance or "mood world" the more creativity you are freed to and the more clarity you have in understanding yourself as the natal chart or as the person you are. I very much enjoyed reading that.

Re: As I Marveling at Astrology Weaving Deep Through Us

Flapjacks, great to see/read you again. I haven't been keeping up in recent weeks.

Flapjacks said:

I'm curiously awaiting further responses to this.

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So am I! I hope people respond.
I have to admit, I've found over seven months or so of being on this site that I'll start some thread like this, imagine there'll be some immediate reaction, watch it slip further and further down the list seemingly sinking to a watery death, and then suddenly two months later - RESURRECTION - some person like you takes it up again and it winds up having a great, interesting life.
I feel like that's happened two or three times now.

She has a deep rage due to feeling life has not given her what she was owed, has dealt her a bad hand. The world seems to keep beating her down every time she fights back, but she keeps fighting. The rage will probably always be there, but she's refining it slowly, turning into something she can use instead of something that uses her... She has the chart of a war general or dictator, honestly.

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Interesting. This is the second person you've described whose chart I'd like to see but know it won't happen. Why would I like to see the chart? Because I assume you were noting a similarity between my little thoughts about myself and your friend with a lot of Aries through here. But on this point I'm nothing like your friend. "Rage" I don't have. Anything remotely war-like I don't have. I wonder what in her chart is reflecting the difference.

In fact one of the things that really strikes me is that to outside eyes I'm not really identifiable as an Aries. Certainly not the reading that sees Aries as essentially martial. I'm going to guess (can't say for sure, don't hang with astrologers) that most people that have a sense of signs would guess a Pisces feel. And much more Libra-like, my natural inclination is always to mediate, to reconcile disputes. (And after some months on this site I can see that in my chart now too). But as it turns out I can't get away from that strong Aries influence in the chart. Deep down, it turns out, the basis of my psychology really, inescapably, fits this Aries/Pluto feel (a la my first post). Greybeard said to me once that the Aries-Libra axis is very prominent in my natal and I can see that now. I come cross initially as mediator-like but, I've realized recently, I'm actually like an Aries/Libra push-pull that goes something like this: "Look, we are going to mediate and sit here until we reconcile - and if you try and leave before we've reconciled this dispute I will fight you and fight you and beat your shattered bones into earth and dust until you realize I'm absolutely morally right on insisting we reconcile right F#%$ing now!"
Though of course, like with all of us, ultimately it's a lot more complicated than that...

But here I am talking about me again... Imagine!
Really I want to hear about everybody else.
And so...

And that is where I can answer your question. If I were to give myself a verb to sum up my fundamental approach to the world, it would be "I understand". My life revolves around making myself understood in a way, and sometimes I worry it makes me self-centered, but it's a desire for communication that has been so inadequate through my life. I approach the world always trying to understand it. If I can understand, everything will be okay. If I can be understood, everything will be okay. And it's those moments where understanding utterly and completely fails that has brought much grief, heartache, transformation and changes in perception in my life.

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Very interesting! Can you elaborate on what you mean by "understand?" I know that sounds like a silly or obtuse question. But it seems to me there's different ways of fundamentally seeking "understanding." At what level do you feel we understand things? Truth with a capital "T" level? Does there need to be any consequence to understanding. Like, does it matter whether it turns into action or not? If you understand an ugly situation do you need to use your knowledge to better it? Or is the drive interested primarily in understanding for the sake of understanding?
Enquiring minds are waiting with bated breath...
I dug your chart out of an old thread somewhere. So you'd say it's the opposition in the 3rd and 9th?
On a side note, I'm beginning to develop a hypothesis - is it right? wrong? don't know yet - that I immediately resonate with how other "Mercury is Lord of the chart" people communicate. But of course, now that I've thrown that hypothesis out there it's going to get blown out of the water.

Hi ScorpioMinistry. Great to meet you.
I'm afraid I've stayed up to late and have too let myself sleep right now, but I just wanted to acknowledge your very interesting post and say I'll try to give a better response to it within the next few days. Tomorrow, actually, I'll be giving that paper its final wrestle into the ground, so I may not be back for a bit.

Thanks for the really deep and thought provoking post BD, I enjoy reading your posts

I'm just coming back with 2 questions that spring to my mind....

Yes...it's who you are i.e. your personality so this is your road map...the signs being the actors, the planets the roles they play and the houses where things can happen but the person who watches the 'who I am' i.e. the observer is actually the real you imo. So my question is once you learn about the personality and the patterns and the road map and where the obstacles are and the smooth flows etc what is the role of astrology from that point? or maybe not so specifically...how does astrology fit in from there?
Hope that I'm making sense

That brings me to one of your second points

I'm a bit older, but I too haven't come to a spot to rest i.e. there's always something new to learn so I wonder if that answers my questions (if it was a rhetorical sort of question) that maybe it's about wrestling with those bulls, I know that feeling for a new challenge or a new set of knowledge and with the inherent DNA of the chart to accompany us on that journey?
Not forgetting of course that we should enjoy the journey and find time to smell the roses on the way....

Finally, if it is as I've written, I don't claim to have all the answers by a long shot, then I wonder if it really does stop with the chart pattern or if there's a potential for something that doesn't show there to maybe not happen but I dunno to be created I guess is the right word?

That makes me think of another question i.e. is it possible to 'transcend' the chart it that doesn't sound dumb?

Thanks for the interesting discussion
see you around

Birch Dragon said:

.

It’s not a cosmetic make up. Not surface... or even a few layers down. It’s who I am. In a way I can’t get away from any more than a tree can get away from being wood. (It's not cosmetic, but it might be cosmic.)
And I want to share it with you as quickly as I can. Then invite/ask anybody interested to help me try and see what life looks like and feels like for you, reflecting your chart make-up.

In a flash moment I realized that the general feeling I’ve just described is how I approach all of life. At my age many people have come to a spot where they want to just rest and be the person they’ve created for themselves. They’ve “arrived” at who they are going to become and now they can enjoy just being that person. But I’m realizing I will never be like that. I am always in motion, always in crisis, driving to some future point. I see the condition of being alive as a boxing match, and I am in the 4th or 5th round.
There’s nothing cosmetic or alterable about this for me. Part of the “small revelation” was to realize that this is not a layer to my personality. It’s the wood I’m constituted by. Whether my life is actually always in a state of driving forward, in a kind of perpetual crisis, isn’t the point. The point is that I approach life this way. I seem to need it that way. I am of that flavor. I'm not fighting with this paper, for example, because it actually is a bull. Several of my friends could have done this in a very different way. I'm fighting with it because that's how I do it.


Again, I realize this is a “small revelation” that doesn’t seem so revelatory to a bunch of astrologers. It’s like the dream you feel deeply but then you tell it and it just sounds like a bunch of words. But to have a moment where I actually felt the total depth to which the themes in my chart seem to be constituting who I am: I just wanted to share it.

And I wanted to ask you this: I would love to hear about your fundamental approach to the world and how it is reflected in your chart. I ask because I know lots of people don’t fundamentally approach the world in the way I just described. I imagine a lot of people read that and thought "wow, I couldn't or wouldn't want to live that way." And I'd love to hear more about what your life is like - your deep assumptions and approaches to the world - and, most importantly, how that approach seems to be reflected in their charts.
I'm thinking this might be a good way to really grasp what it feel like to have far more Cancer influence or Leo influence, for example, than my chart has.

Teach me.

Click to expand...

Hi tr1nity. Great post!
Yes, I think I see a set of two deep concerns in your post. Something about what we might call the soul and something about free will VS. determinism: topics that seem to come up A LOT in good astrology discussion because they are right at the heart of our understanding of astrology. They're questions that are debated quite a bit on this site, and they're questions that I can certainly offer my views on but with the caveat that I think these are exactly the sorts of questions that I'm not willing to give or take a final answer to. I've love to hear other posters on these same questions.
But that said, giving some sort of response to those questions well will probably be a two post job, in my usual too long style, so can I offer for now a rain check - promissory note for future posts?

In the meantime, with this post I wanted to ask you a question about your life/chart, and then double back and just say why I think with your post we're looking at questions of the soul and free will VS. determinism.

First, my question for you:
So, in probably pretty Aries-oriented fashion I've been breaking into a deeper understanding of astrology over these past months by looking deeply at my own chart, asking people about it, etc. But I think this experience I posted on has made me curious about signs and feelings and vibes that I don't see staring into my own chart. How do other people feel? What does it feel like to have five planets in Capricorn? Etc.
So... If I recall right - and from your avatar - you have quite a bit of Sagittarius energy prominent is your chart. is that right? I'm wondering if your feeling of not being finished yet, of still living out a journey, feels different or is coming from a different place than mine? I would immediately guess perhaps my feeling of constant motion is from a deep sense that life is a battle but yours perhaps, with the Sagittarius influence, is a (much more wonderful) sense of nomadism, wanting to absorb and know more, ever reaching into beyonds, explorational? I wonder, do your think there's anything to that???

Second, what I'm reading in your last post. Please correct me if this just seems off.
First, you note that as you see it the true us is an observer, and then the observer is watching/living through a particular life. That life is described and maybe determined by the chart. But the observer isn't. The sense I get from your post is that your view is the observer transcends the specific life, and so is not bound to the chart, even though the specific life may be.
So, that's a debate, I think, about the nature of the soul. And it's important for thinking about astrology. If our soul is entirely embodied - if it is the product of our physical form - than there is nothing deeper than the chart. The chart IS us. But if the soul is ultimately outside of and transcending the life - the Hindu atman, the "observer" - than there is more to us, in the total of our being, than just the chart.
That leads directly to the next theme I see in your post! Are we locked into the conditions the chart sets for us, or is there a way we can transcend what the chart seems to demand. Do I have to treat life like a battle just because I have an Aries new moon in my chart? Or can I shift myself even at the deepest level of basic approaches to life, to remold myself into a new way of being?
This is usually discussed in terms of free will vs. determinism. Clearly the vision of the soul as observer tends to suggest the second - that we can ultimately transcend the demands of our chart. Because there's a transcendent observer, that observer can turn to me and say "Birch Dragon, at a fundamental level, calm down!" The observer can see other possibilities because it isn't "locked in."
And so I think that's the direction you lean in: That with the chart we can know ourselves and the conditions of our lives, but really that's just like getting to know how the car we drive in works. The driver still has to figure out how to drive it.
And so you ask: "once you learn about the personality and the patterns and the road map and where the obstacles are and the smooth flows etc what is the role of astrology from that point?" and "is it possible to 'transcend' the chart?" - which I think are probably ultimately the same question, or at least stemming from the same concern.

So it's a great post, and hopefully I see what you're asking and where it's coming from. I see you wondering about how astrology fits into your conception of the soul, and following from that your stance on free will and the ability to transcend or at least have a say in our own fate.
Am I basically seeing this correctly? Let me know if I am or not. If I have the basic idea I'll reply within a few days, once I've carved my way through the work I should be doing RIGHT NOW instead of playing on AW !

Hi BirchDragon,

Thanks for the reply, I thought it was a really insightful and deep response (well done) and take all the time you need to do a second post...

Yes Sagittarius the big 3 Sun, Moon and Mercury so yes the endless search for the real truth and the journey I can relate to. However I'm actually Earth dominant and I think all my planets and all my experiences combine to write what I feel about. But I agree with you, we won't approach the same question from the same angle, because we are all different and I think that is the great beauty of people. I also know that 2 people can look at the same optical illusion and not see the same thing and that is also the beauty of different opinions. I agree also, there's no right or wrong answer sometimes. There's just differing points of view.

My heart tells me that the soul isn't the product of the physical body, it's actually separate but it is 'trapped' inside the vehicle it came to earth with. There is much more to us than the chart imo, however the chart is important because these are the characteristics of the personality or road map that it chose independently of a physical body or ego, so it could gain experience of the lessons that that personality would dictate. It wants these experiences to grow therefore they are very important.

I think we are 'locked into the chart' in a manner of speaking as if I may make the analogy with a pack of cards... we can't change the hand of cards we've been dealt with( in my opinion) though we can learn to deal them wisely...so to use your example....Do I have to treat life like a battle (quote) I believe you have a choice in how you react to the 'battle' metaphorically speaking. But it's interesting to consider which part is making that choice....and I don't know the answer to that...

So ultimately...yes what happens from an astrological perspective... when you see the road map for what it is...?

Maybe transcend was too extreme a verb to use but how about if we make the choice not to attach to a participation in the event which the astrological road map dictates. I guess is the right word, in the personality of the chart.

I've been studying chaos astrology theory separately and I think it's relevant to bring it in here that our experience of physical reality is actually a non-linear reality (let's make the comparison with the classroom...teacher's don't operate in a linear environment...they face the unexpected each day....) so whilst we can see behaviour patterns and tendencies in the road map, then the chaos theory goes that any shift from the homeostasis will open up multiple possibilities which would technically speaking throw the determinism theory out of the window. That said, the inherent DNA of the chart does need to have that element of personality so again it's using what it has in its make up.

Having said that then, if the 'real you' who watches the events or circumstances of the astrological chart unfold and watches the attachments to the issues, because that's where its free will choice lies and then takes a step towards the 'edge of chaos' in that astrological theory then I truly believe that there are infinite possibilities. Whether that can be known as 'transcending' the chart I don't know the answer and I'm curious to hear what you and everyone thinks..

Lastly, hope I've not taken the discussion off tangent, I do have a tendency to go off at tangents

Thank you again for the interesting discussion.

Birch Dragon said:

But that said, giving some sort of response to those questions well will probably be a two post job, in my usual too long style, so can I offer for now a rain check - promissory note for future posts?


So... If I recall right - and from your avatar - you have quite a bit of Sagittarius energy prominent is your chart. is that right? I'm wondering if your feeling of not being finished yet, of still living out a journey, feels different or is coming from a different place than mine? I would immediately guess perhaps my feeling of constant motion is from a deep sense that life is a battle but yours perhaps, with the Sagittarius influence, is a (much more wonderful) sense of nomadism, wanting to absorb and know more, ever reaching into beyonds, explorational? I wonder, do your think there's anything to that???

Second, what I'm reading in your last post. Please correct me if this just seems off.
First, you note that as you see it the true us is an observer, and then the observer is watching/living through a particular life. That life is described and maybe determined by the chart. But the observer isn't. The sense I get from your post is that your view is the observer transcends the specific life, and so is not bound to the chart, even though the specific life may be.
So, that's a debate, I think, about the nature of the soul. And it's important for thinking about astrology. If our soul is entirely embodied - if it is the product of our physical form - than there is nothing deeper than the chart. The chart IS us. But if the soul is ultimately outside of and transcending the life - the Hindu atman, the "observer" - than there is more to us, in the total of our being, than just the chart.
That leads directly to the next theme I see in your post! Are we locked into the conditions the chart sets for us, or is there a way we can transcend what the chart seems to demand. Do I have to treat life like a battle just because I have an Aries new moon in my chart? Or can I shift myself even at the deepest level of basic approaches to life, to remold myself into a new way of being?
This is usually discussed in terms of free will vs. determinism. Clearly the vision of the soul as observer tends to suggest the second - that we can ultimately transcend the demands of our chart. Because there's a transcendent observer, that observer can turn to me and say "Birch Dragon, at a fundamental level, calm down!" The observer can see other possibilities because it isn't "locked in."
And so I think that's the direction you lean in: That with the chart we can know ourselves and the conditions of our lives, but really that's just like getting to know how the car we drive in works. The driver still has to figure out how to drive it.
And so you ask: "once you learn about the personality and the patterns and the road map and where the obstacles are and the smooth flows etc what is the role of astrology from that point?" and "is it possible to 'transcend' the chart?" - which I think are probably ultimately the same question, or at least stemming from the same concern.

So it's a great post, and hopefully I see what you're asking and where it's coming from. I see you wondering about how astrology fits into your conception of the soul, and following from that your stance on free will and the ability to transcend or at least have a say in our own fate.
Am I basically seeing this correctly? Let me know if I am or not. If I have the basic idea I'll reply within a few days, once I've carved my way through the work I should be doing RIGHT NOW instead of playing on AW !

Click to expand...

Birch Dragon said:

I have to admit, I've found over seven months or so of being on this site that I'll start some thread like this, imagine there'll be some immediate reaction, watch it slip further and further down the list seemingly sinking to a watery death, and then suddenly two months later - RESURRECTION - some person like you takes it up again and it winds up having a great, interesting life.
I feel like that's happened two or three times now.

Click to expand...

Welcome to the internet. Don't be surprised if it isn't resurrected 3 years from now, too.

Birch Dragon said:

Interesting. This is the second person you've described whose chart I'd like to see but know it won't happen. Why would I like to see the chart? Because I assume you were noting a similarity between my little thoughts about myself and your friend with a lot of Aries through here. But on this point I'm nothing like your friend. "Rage" I don't have. Anything remotely war-like I don't have. I wonder what in her chart is reflecting the difference.

In fact one of the things that really strikes me is that to outside eyes I'm not really identifiable as an Aries. Certainly not the reading that sees Aries as essentially martial. I'm going to guess (can't say for sure, don't hang with astrologers) that most people that have a sense of signs would guess a Pisces feel. And much more Libra-like, my natural inclination is always to mediate, to reconcile disputes. (And after some months on this site I can see that in my chart now too). But as it turns out I can't get away from that strong Aries influence in the chart. Deep down, it turns out, the basis of my psychology really, inescapably, fits this Aries/Pluto feel (a la my first post). Greybeard said to me once that the Aries-Libra axis is very prominent in my natal and I can see that now. I come cross initially as mediator-like but, I've realized recently, I'm actually like an Aries/Libra push-pull that goes something like this: "Look, we are going to mediate and sit here until we reconcile - and if you try and leave before we've reconciled this dispute I will fight you and fight you and beat your shattered bones into earth and dust until you realize I'm absolutely morally right on insisting we reconcile right F#%$ing now!"
Though of course, like with all of us, ultimately it's a lot more complicated than that...

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I don't think you sound like my friend at all, which is what is interesting. However, I think the biggest difference that is immediately apparent is that your chart ruler is Mercury in Pisces in the 7th house while her chart ruler is the Sun in Aries in the 9th house. Your Mars is also Aquarius while hers in Taurus... both fixed, but both very different approaches to using the Mars energy.

Also that description of Aries/Libra axis with Pluto is amusing. Aries impatience? The phrase, "WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?" comes to mind, too.

Birch Dragon said:

Very interesting! Can you elaborate on what you mean by "understand?" I know that sounds like a silly or obtuse question. But it seems to me there's different ways of fundamentally seeking "understanding." At what level do you feel we understand things? Truth with a capital "T" level? Does there need to be any consequence to understanding. Like, does it matter whether it turns into action or not? If you understand an ugly situation do you need to use your knowledge to better it? Or is the drive interested primarily in understanding for the sake of understanding?
Enquiring minds are waiting with bated breath...
I dug your chart out of an old thread somewhere. So you'd say it's the opposition in the 3rd and 9th?

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Ha, I dug yours out too. Sneaky sneaky.

I'm not really sure how to answer those questions. I think it's more with the intent of feeling a part of this world I'm in, because I don't feel like I am. Having an understanding of it and other people in it helps, that I might actually have a place here and something useful to provide (Venus in Virgo and Mars in Cap must be useful, I think). Since I can be very good at understanding many different things, that's what I try to do. .... oh gosh, I just realized why Data is probably my favorite Star Trek: Next Generation character.... Just... think of Data. Except, if Data could actually understand humans without quite as much difficulty.

Birch Dragon said:

On a side note, I'm beginning to develop a hypothesis - is it right? wrong? don't know yet - that I immediately resonate with how other "Mercury is Lord of the chart" people communicate. But of course, now that I've thrown that hypothesis out there it's going to get blown out of the water.

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What hypothesis?

tr1nity said:

Finally, if it is as I've written, I don't claim to have all the answers by a long shot, then I wonder if it really does stop with the chart pattern or if there's a potential for something that doesn't show there to maybe not happen but I dunno to be created I guess is the right word?

That makes me think of another question i.e. is it possible to 'transcend' the chart it that doesn't sound dumb?

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Think of how the perspective of each planet, house and sign has developed over the course of astrological research. Saturn 300 years ago isn't the same Saturn we look at today, astrologically speaking (well, for many). There are things in this world that have changed, and so the meanings change with them. In that sense, we create our charts as well as learn from them. There may be a lot of things that aren't showing but are there, and the process of discovery is never ending, I believe. I think, even knowing that, allows us to transcend the chart.

tr1nity said:

Having said that then, if the 'real you' who watches the events or circumstances of the astrological chart unfold and watches the attachments to the issues, because that's where its free will choice lies and then takes a step towards the 'edge of chaos' in that astrological theory then I truly believe that there are infinite possibilities. Whether that can be known as 'transcending' the chart I don't know the answer and I'm curious to hear what you and everyone thinks..

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I find the "observer" in us can observe because it's at a stationary point, metaphorically speaking (...maybe physically). The observer knows that no choice needs to be made, that things will happen as they will, and that is what makes it the observer. Free will is meaningless to the observer in my view. It encompasses the universe, where all choices have been made. This seems similar to what you're saying, from a different perspective.

If you really want to trip out, watch "Mr. Nobody". That movie explores a lot of these kinds of themes in a very artistic and clever way.

Flapjacks said:

I find the "observer" in us can observe because it's at a stationary point, metaphorically speaking (...maybe physically). The observer knows that no choice needs to be made, that things will happen as they will, This seems similar to what you're saying, from a different perspective.

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I think you've made a really good point there flapj, smart thinking... so if the observer knows that things will happen as they will it's the personality maybe engaging with the choice or reactions and perhaps that's the chart just a thought?
Also there was an earlier post about a higher tree to watch from I think that's also a very good point ....