The primary tool an astrologer
uses is the natal or birth chart which is literally a stylized map of the solar
system as seen from the particular place and time of a person’s birth. It has
several features; the planets, the zodiac signs, the houses, and the aspects or
angles of relationship between the planets. More imaginatively however, it is
an image of psyche or soul, a mapping of the topography of our inner landscape.
As a map it can be used for purposes of orientation, helping us fathom where we
are in life, sounding out our centers, and getting our bearings. We can imagine
life as a turning wheel of dynamic process with the nascent springtime of our
youth, the summer fruition of our efforts, our inevitable fall and decline and
finally, our demise into winter’s inactivity and dormancy.
The
birth chart provides a framework for imagining a profound intimacy between
ourselves and our world. We hear this deep intimacy echoed in the words of
early Church Father, Origen who wrote, “Know that you are another world in
miniature and have in you Sun and Moon and even stars.”
But for our charts to say
anything to us, astrology must of necessity hinge on the fantasy that our world
is a living being capable of speaking to those who have the ears to hear and
the eyes to see. Historically we find this in the Old Testament in psalm 19….
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim
the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night
they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not
heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the end of the
world.”
What is this psalm but a faith
statement about the world’s capacity to speak, to communicate with us, whether
it’s the birds singing their message, the wind in the trees, the clouds on the
horizon conveying the weather, the days becoming shorter, or the dance of the
planets, the world affords us the opportunity to understand our situations. The
world discloses itself to us and also reveals us to ourselves.
Emerson once wrote…
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to
face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation
to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and
not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of
theirs?... Every man’s condition is a solution in hieroglyphic to those
inquiries he would put.”
This “solution in hieroglyphic”
sounds very much like the image of our birth map. If the universe is sacred as
many traditions hold, then astrology is a form of living, sacred text.
There is no Muslim moon or Catholic sun, no Buddhist
season or sign, the heavens do not play favorites. The sky is all inclusive, it
speaks to everyone. It’s the perfect container for a global spirituality for it
is something under which we all gather and share in common. So it would seem
that the astrology chart is a hieroglyph; a sacred symbol reflective of the
sky. It is a world infused with sacredness.
Visit me at AstroCare.net
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