Readings

The Birth Chart: Face of Fate or Moment to Participate?

The pattern of planets that surround you at birth create what is known as a natal or birth chart. In keeping with the ancient wisdom, “as above, so below,” this design reflects the nature of the person coming forth in that moment.

It’s tempting to view this as the other way around: the planets as “the cause” and ourselves as as the effect. But this perspective tends to create a "planets made me do it" attitude in which our "chart" or "sign" is responsible for our behavior. "What do you expect--I'm an Aries. Everyone knows Aries are impatient!" Besides the misfortune of associating Aries merely with its shadow-side, there is another issue here: What is the higher use of "impatience"? Is it not spontaneous,courageous action? Aries, after all, is associated with the archetype of the Warrior. When we use the planets or signs as an excuse for our errant behavior, we miss the higher ground of that energy.

To see the chart as the causal factor may well be to underestimate the power of the soul, and its participation in choosing a moment that reflects its own reasons, desires, and purposes for being here.

Consider all of the babies who have been days, weeks, and even months earlier than expected--or hours and hours later than their mothers would have preferred. Or children born in different locations than their parents imagined at the time of conception. There’s a mystery to the timing and location of birth, and astrology proposes that part of that mystery is the participation of the soul being born.