Charlie Obert
I want to talk about my journey through different ways of doing astrology, because I think it parallels some of where astrology may fruitfully go in the future.
Modern or psychological astrology was born partly as a reaction against an older, fate-based approach in which the planets and stars are forces outside of us, and astrology tells of us of the events that happen to us largely outside of our control.
That view has its limitations.
A few minutes ago, Saturn moved from Libra into Scorpio. This marks the official end of my second Saturn return.
In Hellenistic astrology, the Saturn return is measured as the entire time the planet transits its natal sign, and not just the exact degree aspect. I find that to be a very useful interpretive principle.
The parallels between the two returns were marked, and quite eerie.
Accepting your lot in life – that is a lot of what an astrology reading is all about, and that is a lot of what I am learning from studying traditional astrology.
I did a reading around a month ago, with a chart that was extremely severe – in technical terms, the sun was beseiged by Saturn and Mars, one by conjunction and one by opposition, within less than a degree. It was brutally hard.
I asked the woman if she had any questions, and she gave me a list, and one after another of her questions was picking up on all the really difficult things going on in her chart. Continue reading “Your Lot in Life”
I’ve read a lot of astrology charts for people, especially over the past few years. Some readings go well, some meander, and some are just dead-on accurate.
I am now convinced that the single most important factor in how well a reading goes, is the focus and intent of the person I am reading for.
The quality of the question determines the quality of the reading. Continue reading “Focus on the Question”
Aspects in astrology deal with the relationships between the planets. In modern astrology, the aspects are all degree based, and there are what are called major aspects (conjunction, sextile, square, trine,opposition) and a large number of minor aspects based on different numbers of degrees between planets.
Traditional astrology views aspects differently. Continue reading “Aspects and seeing”
Traditional astrology views the planets in a very different way than modern astrology does. This is related to the concept of planetary dignity, which doesn’t mean a lot in modern astrology.
In traditional astrology, each of the seven classical planets rules one or more signs. This is not a matter of simple affinity. It means that the planet is responsible for the affairs of the house(s) it rules.
There are a lot of ways that traditional astrology measures the effectiveness of a planet, how well it is able to do its job. The different dignities are different ways of judging how the planets can function, and different ways they interact. Think of the dignities as like the different ways that the planets fit within the citizenship of the overall world of the chart.
Many people think of astrology as just referring to your sun sign, which is the sort that shows up in newspapers and on ‘pop’ sites. (“Love your blood red nails… you must be a Scorpio…”)
Other people are aware of natal astrology, which means reading a chart of the planetary configuration for the day and time you were born. A lot of astrology begins there… but does not end there. Continue reading “Astrology and a Yearly Checkup”
Changing to the practice of traditional astrology, is part of an overall shift in worldview that has been going on in my life for some years now. In order to really explain, I need to share some personal background.
I became increasingly serious about my study of astrology during the period that my wife of 24 years was dying of cancer. Continue reading “Stoicism and Mental Hygiene”
I had a rather unpleasant interchange at an astrology discussion group this week. We were talking about different ways of understanding doing astrology, and I was talking about Stoicism.
Stoicism, which was a very prevelant philosophy when astrology was first developed in the West, views the universe as structured and largely if not completely deterministic or fated. Reading an astrology chart is an attempt to divine that order – to find out the will of the Gods for you – so that you can work with that order.
When I finished my sentence someone turned to me and said,
“But why?”
How is traditional astrology different from modern?
Here are some notes I made, some more technical than others, to explain the basic differences.