Astrology, Perception and Interpretation

It has been a long time since I have written anything here on my astrology blog. I want to talk here about why.

I wrote a long post last month, analyzing the general astrology for 2022 using the Capricorn and Aries ingresses, and an eclipse that falls right around the US election in November. I sat on it for over a month, and I’ve decided I don’t want to publish it, for a couple of reasons.

One, what I am seeing in the astrology for the year is quite turbulent and dark.

And two, at this point, I don’t see any way that I, or anyone else, can dis-entangle general political views and opinions from the astrology I do, especially in our highly polarized world. I now think that is inevitable. I want to give a couple of instances here.

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Consider astrology during the era of William Lilly. You effectively had two camps of astrologers, depending on how they lined up politically in their attitude to the monarchy. Each side predictably interpreted the astrology as supporting their political side. Same stars, opposite interpretations. Which is the “true” astrology?

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I looked at some predictive presentations by other astrologers about world events, and I want to talk about my reaction.

With one, I looked at a prediction of upcoming events for the year by a skilled astrologer – but, I looked at a recording made in late 2020 talking about 2021. I wanted to see how the presentation looked after the fact.

The astrologer was extremely skilled technically, and knew how to pull major configurations out – that aspect of the presentation was a joy to watch. Some of the predictions were on in a general sort of way, but some were extremely wrong, and the ones that were accurate were general enough that they could have been fulfilled in any of a great number of ways.

That astrologer also made the comment that she was aware of political bias, but because of a certain configuration in her chart she could stand above that – and from my perspective there were parts of her presentation that were just straight political cliche, and I could tell exactly where she stood politically – and for some strange reason her predictions supported her bias, especially in regard to a Certain Person who People React Emotionally To Very Strongly.

I am now convinced that the level of political bias in an astrologer’s work is in inverse proportion to their awareness of that bias.

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There were another couple of astrologers whose presentations I viewed, who again were very skilled technically – but, after there presentations, I realized I could not bring to mind any single specific prediction they had made. Everything was general enough that I couldn’t pin it down.

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I heard of a specific interpretation, or rather a pair of interpretations, that happened in a group discussion of an astrologer friend of mine.

This was in a discussion about Mercury in the 12th house of the chart of Donald Trump. To one of the group members it was blatantly obvious that this had to refer to the conspiracy plotting Trump must have done relative to the January 6 incident. To another person in the group it was equally blatantly obvious that this referred to the numerous documented conspiracies against Trump that took place during his entire time in office.

Both are astrologically perfectly valid as interpretations of that configuration. Which one you see in the chart is completely a function of your political stance.

With my readers here, it is probably perfectly obvious to you that one of those interpretations is plain fact, as plain as the mask on your face, and the other is just plain misinformed.

So which is the “correct” interpretation?

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I think you get the idea.

Summing up, I decided not to post my thoughts on the outlook for the year, basically because the astrology just confirmed what I was thinking and perceiving without it. I think the astrology did help me to clarify my thoughts and focus things, but it really didn’t change any ideas I had.

I figured out that I could write about what I was seeing just as effectively without having to mention astrology at all. If I would say the same things without the astrology – if the astrology really did not make a significant difference in what I wrote – then what exactly did the astrology add?

So for this very big reason – and for some other personal reasons – I decided I need to back off and get some perspective on working with astrology going forward.

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I want to end this post with a three card reading I did with the Marseille Tarot. It is very compact and vivid, and it neatly sums up the kinds of things I see when I look at the astrology for the upcoming period.

The Fool – The Tower – The Chariot.

We are stumbling blindly into a period where things are falling apart all around us. Our challenge is to figure out how to navigate those changes.

This is a good time to be humble and flexible – to be ready to change course quickly – to be ready to adapt to unforeseen situations – and perhaps most importantly, to be able to admit when you are wrong and making a mistake, and need to change course.

Godspeed.