Astrology as a collective experience

 

The Singularity of Being -- a book by Mari Ruti that once stood on my bookshelf, but now not anymore, so I have to paraphrase the ideas that I have from there and always stayed with me -- meditates on the idea of what makes each person so unique. 

The writer concludes at some point that our pain and trauma makes us who we are, because the pressures on our body and souls leaves our life energy to choose a path between the boulders that life throws at us. This creates -- I'm trying to remember Ruti's exact words, but I'll fail-- 'our own textured tapestry of pain'. She argues that our psyche is structuring itself around its defense mechanisms and fears, and these neural pathways inform who we become.

Some people are against the idea of astrology because they believe it denies their uniqueness. Some people fall in love with astrology because it confirms to them how special, how extraordinary they are. In this essay I want to argue astrology does neither of both. Astrology is far more a collective experience.

In this day and age we haven't a very direct connection to the sky anymore, because a lot of the time the sky is simply not visible. Especially in the northern hemisphere we are not living outside, so a lot of the time we miss the events that happen in nature and in the sky above us. A supernova could dramaticly light up the sky, and a lot of us wouldn't notice. 

At every given moment hundreds of babies are born under the same sky, in the same time and place as dozens of others. Why are some babies becoming dictators and other babies nice parents, even if their astrology is the same?

Two answers: it is quite difficult to find two birthcharts which are exactly the same! A lot of defining features of the sky are moving extremely quickly, like the Ascendant and the moon. Even twins are born separately, sometimes even so apart in time that their Ascendant is different because it moved into another sign. 

Second answer: Contrary to popular believe, astrology does not show your personality. It shows the circumstances, pressures and influences that make an impression on you through life, shaping your personality into form. So you are still just you. Astrology leaves lots of room for free will. 

You can compare it to planting a rose in your garden in winter or in spring: the seasonal circumstances defines how the plant will fare, how much defense mechnanisms it will develop, how many thorns it will grow, how beautifully the petals will smell, or even if it will grow at all: but it doesn't really define the plant itself. A rose's a rose. Astrology is describing these seasons influencing everything that is born in a certain time, but is not really defining the rose itself. Deep! 

Time is not just a sequence of seconds and minutes. It is a thing with characteristics and texture. Spacetime, remember? Time can move, curve and bend, said Einstein. It is a living, tactile thing. For every astrologer there is the Aha!-moment when you realise time is really something. It's material. Time is the body of the Sun. Time is the coldness in the evening. Time is my skin. It is a cry in February of a cat in heat. All these things are the elements that time needs to exist. Without us, it wouldn't be there.

The time in which you are born, gives some of its characteristics to you, like the natural environment gives characteristics to the animals who live in it. It gives you certain advantages. It pressures you to become one with the environment, to melt into it. Deserts create animals who are adapted to the heat. Time creates creatures that are adapted to...the times. 

We often hear we don't understand time as well as space, because space is something concrete, something you can touch. But even if it is impossible to touch time, we can feel time, and feel the mark that it leaves on us. Time isn't so strange to us! We are so used to be embedded in it, that we don't constantly notice it. 

Astrology is a study of the marks time makes, and it is a study that existed for centuries and has created a wealth of material about the meaning of time. Traditional astrologers can even tell us how a certain time smells. They name these tapestries of times, making us aware of it and giving us words to speak about it. So we do understand time. The only thing is that astrologers tell us that time doesn't work like we learned in school. Time is far more complicated, non-linear and lively. 

If you believe that astrology says that your personality is fixed and therefore you don't agree with it, than you don't know what astrology is. It is the study of time, so it is the study of change and movement. It is not deterministic: it only tries to predict certain outcomes like a geologist tries to predict the bursting of a volcano by observation and patience. And just like modern science, astrology proved its legimaticy by predictions that came true. For centuries, there was even no difference between astronomy and astrology. For a long time, people only used their eyes and senses to map the celestial movements - and therefor felt a direct relationship to the celestial bodies. In our time, having this direct experience is less manifest, so we sort of forget that stars and planets are part of nature. The moon pulls the tides and even pulls the water in our bodies within her gravitational field. The sun warms our skin and activates our melatonin. The celestial bodies are part of nature, just like we are. 

This doesn't mean that the planets are directly influencing us: they are just part of the same bends and patterns as we do. They are just further away, so we can track them quite nicely. It is like when you hear the thunder, and know that the lightning will come in a while: you see a planetary movement, and you know change is coming.

So when you look at a birthchart, you can read the 'time-environment' of a persons birth - just like you would look at the space, nature and country a person is born in to make some predictions about their behaviour. That doesn't mean that the things around you (and the organical material inside you) completely defines you, but it will sure impact your being profoundly. Your time-markings won't completely define you, but it sure molds the shape of your life, its events and the people that will come your way. 

The planetary placements weren't only there for you. They were the same for lots of other people. The planets make cycles spanning longer than our lives. We all experience them in  weaker or stronger ways, depending on the place where we started our life. We can track these cycles just like you track the weather to know if you have to put on a coat. The way we deal with these cycles, refuse or allow to adapt, flow with them or resist them, makes us singular. But in the end we are collectively pulled by  the stream.