Astrologers don’t often talk about the structure of the horoscope chart. They’re concerned, instead, with the movements of planets and stars: how the heavenly bodies move across the skies to interact with each other, to brand upon each individual a small, unique form of their unfathomable universal energies.
They want to know how each person will express a Moon square Saturn or a Mars trine Uranus or any other of the seemingly infinite combinations of stars, planets and houses that describe our lives. They want to tell people how these energies may play out in their lives, what to watch for, how to manage the difficult ones delicately, how to exploit the positive ones for maximum gain.
But in the center of the chart (at least when it is drawn Huber-style, like the one to the right) is a small, inviolable circle. I see this circle as the meeting-point of the individual and the universal — that is, the point where the Divine within the person reaches out toward the overarching Divine that pervades and penetrates the whole universe. That small circle is the doorway between the limited self and the unlimited eternal. It is the stillpoint we all long for, even as we try to understand the whirlwind of energies that move and change and dance around us, pulling us in and pushing us back, every day.
In this time of chaos and fear — I know more people now, in this moment, who are jobless than I’ve ever known, collectively, my entire life — I’ve also heard more people say, “I have faith” than I’ve ever heard before. I’ve heard the certainty in their voices, too: They’re not just repeating a platitude, trying to convince themselves it’ll all be okay when underneath they’re quaking. Instead of giving into chaos and fear, they’ve somehow moved closer to the stillpoints at their centers, become able to dance with the rhythms of their charts, no matter how chaotic or frightening. They’re letting go into the largeness that engulfs us — not in a powerless, belly-up kind of way but in a powerful, God’s-will kind of way.
When we’re tested, we can fight back, we can turn over or we can spread our arms to receive what is coming.
In Buddhist terms, this last choice is the choice to let go of attachment to outcome A to welcome whatever may arrive, to trust that the universe will bring what is needed next. My astrology mentor says, “We live our charts, whether we know it or not.” Indeed, energies will evolve in each of our lives, bringing us to Point A or Avenue B without us ever really intending it. But what we do when we get there is still largely up to us: If we want to see a monkey at Point A, are we going to fight back if we see a taco stand instead? Or will we embrace the taco for what it is?
In either case, we can still breathe, and feel the universe well up within us.
[...] horoscope chart is not the end word in healing and wholeness. In fact, it is to that stillpoint at the center of the chart that all roads finally, lovingly, lead. But some pain is so profound that it’s taken us off the [...]
I was about to do something like this a bit ago, but I never was able to finish . it is really nice learning about your experience.