Astrology is just a finger pointing at reality
“Scorpios are sexy, but cannot be trusted; Capricorns are industrious; Pisceans are cosmic, but too spacy to balance their checkbooks.” Even in advanced texts we find similar assertions: “a negatively aspected Venus suggests promiscuity.” Changeless, rigid statements. There is an indeterminacy, an unpredictable element in life. This wild card may be a thorn in the side of the fortune-tellers, but it is the keystone of any positive, evolutionary approach to astrology. Or to any accurate approach, for that matter.
Astrology is just a finger pointing at reality. Like any other language, it only provides a way of ordering our perceptions. At its best it aids us in seeing ourselves more honestly. At its worst it drops a wall between us and the rawness of our own experience. To be of value it must not only reflect the actualities of living; it must hone the cutting edge of our growth. If astrology does not give the mind the sharpness of a laser and leave the heart an open nerve, then it has failed. How can such drama be generated? Certainly not through droning a list of “traits” associated with each celestial configuration. We are not robots. We are men and women. We are not inalterably programmed at birth, predestined to run off our astrological tapes until our batteries run down. That choice may be available to us: we are free to be mechanical and boring, to ritualize our behavior into a haze of dullness and predictability. But we can do so much more. To be human is to be mutable. To be capable of change. To be indeterminate. To know growth.
There may be an Everest of inertia within us, but it is to that single atom of mutability that astrology must speak. It must address the life in us, not the stasis. Each astrological symbol represents a spectrum of possibilities; each birthchart contains the roots of ten thousand personalities. This is the key to the system. An individual can respond to a birthchart in an unimaginative way, or vibrantly and creatively. His or her response can never be known in advance. There is no such thing as a good birthchart or a bad one. There are no evolved charts or un-evolved ones, no sane ones, no schizophrenic ones. Whatever measure of virtue interests us, we must look elsewhere to find it. Astrology can help us in only three ways. It can vividly portray the happiest life available to us. It can tell us what tools we have available for the job and how best to employ them. And it can warn us in advance about how our lives will look when we are getting off the mark. From that point on, we must affirm that all choices lie in our own hands and that no planet or sign ever preordains a specific fate. Once those points have been made, we can listen to the message of the birthchart or we can ignore it. That is our own business. And even if we do choose to ignore it, life itself will get the same message across to us sooner or later.
