Alchemy in Dark Art
I seem to have hit this level of understanding with astrology where I can see a benefit in allowing people to vent to me.
It is helpful because it allows me to see different iterations of one transit and how those manifest depending on the orientation of someone’s natal zodiacal wheel. Its as though my friends are helping me to understand the collective consciousness by revealing their problems to me. In fact, because of my knowledge of astrological transits, I’m usually already a step ahead on processing the energies that arise. Doesn’t make them any easier to handle, it just allows for more preparation. By the time my friends call me because they’ve reached their wit’s end, I am already so deep in alchemizing that I can light up their torch with my own.
If you know nothing about astrology, this will likely make no sense to you. I’ll have to ask you to suspend your disbelief in order to continue reading. Tunnel vision is a bitch. There is a place for intellectuals in the occult knowledge, they are just all too often unwilling to experiment in this thought realm. I guess it’s too childish or too magical, whatever the case may be, its a stale cop out to exploring the mind. While it can be a daunting endeavor because it sounds like a lot of information, its really just muddled due to a bunch of different people trying to teach each other, some of whom have never even reviewed ancient astrological myths and methods. To each their own, but the practice can only be preserved if the traditional wisdom is passed down. It wouldn’t hurt to have some more first-principles thinkers on this quest, but I digress…
Astrology Terms:
Briefly, its important to mention that the reason you feel like horoscopes could apply to everyone and aren’t specific to you is because we all actually have a natal chart that includes all the signs (and all the planets and houses for that matter). I’m an Aries sun (exalted at 19degrees), so for most of my life, I read the horoscope for Aries. However, it turns out that Aries rules my 10th House of social connections. (Hand, 1981) So while all those horoscopes I read in J-14 Magazine did apply to me, it was in a realm of my life that is actually external to me. The orientation of a Zodiacal wheel is based on the ascendant which is determined by the exact time of birth.
The ascendant changes every two hours into a new sign. For reference, it takes the moon 2.5 days to change signs and the reason everyone knows their sun sign is because it changes month to month and that’s easier to keep up with based on our calendars. While you may be able to determine which constellations all the planets appeared to fall in at the time of your birth (the sun and moon count as planets because ancients used a geocentric perspective), you won’t be able to tell which house they fall in unless you know your ascendant sign. But sometimes, if you take the time to contemplate and reflect regularly, you can start to figure out what your ascendant is likely to be.
For instance, I am a gemini rising. At my time of birth, the sun was rising up in the part of the sky where the constellation gemini could be seen if it were a night sky. I feel compelled to remind my reader that the stars don’t just disappear when it’s day time. While we can no longer see them, they are still hanging out as the world spins madly on. I hope you can see how this is a much more personalized chart than just a sun sign. Now you know the constellations (or signs) that govern two houses in my chart. (Recap: My 11th house is governed by Aries and my 1st house, where the ascendant always falls, is governed by Gemini). Believe it or not, two people born on the same day, at the same hospital, and minutes apart can have a different ascendent signs if they are close enough to a cusp at time of birth.
When you know your ascendant, you know which sign governs the first house of your chart. According to Robert Hand, the ascendant is:
“A point of self-manifestation where energies of the self pass from the inner realm to the outer and are made manifest to the not-self. Governs one’s effects or impression, or the kind of action one takes upon the outer world: hence related to the personality and physical body.”
Think of it as the moment you entered this world. Its pretty remarkable if you really let that sink in because its a 3-Dimensional map of your birth.
How does that help me with digesting my friends problems for them? Well, I have casted a birth chart for most of my closest friends. When they call me I immediately sit down in front of their chart and try to understand where the energies that I’m working with are manifesting for them. For instance, Saturn and Uranus have been squaring off in a thematic battle of restriction versus freedom (Sound like something you’ve been experiencing? If not… look no further than the collective.)
This has been occurring in my 9th House and 12th House, which are the houses of philosophy and the unseen (if I had to pick one word to describe them). I have been doing a fuck ton of shadow work over the past two years so I understand this Uranus-Saturn energy on a deep level. Now when my Sagittarius rising friend calls me, I know this is happening in her 3rd and 6th Houses. For her, this energy is occurring in the house of communication and the house of day-to-day routines, respectively. The same themes I’ve been working through in my spiritual unseen life have been showing up for her in issues related to a lack of communication with her friend/business partner.
Sometimes it gets on my nerves because people never really ask how I am, but I think that is something I am attempting to resolve internally (the need for reciprocation). Just listening to people I’m not only providing space for them, I’m allowing them to heal themselves. The benefit for me is that I have data to apply to my understanding of this art. Each life, each story is a part of my own and rather than having to experience all the pain in this world, I feel like I am helping to heal it.
Hand, R. (1981). Horoscope Symbols. Para Research Inc. Pages 300, 334
Originally written in Collective Journaling at The Stoa
