Category: Philosophy

Fate and Free Will

This is a sequel to my previous post on Comforting Fate, where I talked about a situation where the concept of fate, a larger order outside of my control, could be very positive, comforting and supportive.

In this post I want to examine the complementary position, thinking in terms of free will and the power of choice and attitude to shape our experience.

This is an issue that I’ve been wrestling with for a very long time. Sometimes the traditional stoic attitude of accepting fate makes the most sense, and sometimes the whole modern astrology attitude of consciously working with intent to cooperate with it, as a way to shape it to manifest in the best way, makes the most sense.

I’ve experienced both.

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Comforting Fate

This meditation is about Fate, and about Free will, both. I happen to think both are useful concepts.

Feel free to run for the exit now if you want; I know a lot of modern astrologers react to any mention of Fate like touching a hot iron. It runs against the grain of our modern affluent American culture.

With the modern, optimistic view of astrology there is a very heavy emphasis on choice, and on people being able to choose how they deal with the energies in their charts, and how they live their lives. The power is yours, the responsibility is yours, to make of your life what you will.

Encouraging and comforting, yes?

Well, No – not always.

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Jump Out at You

When you’ve been studying astrology for any length of time you start to realize that there are so, so many symbols, so many ways of interpreting charts, so many points, aspects, angles, midpoints…

Do you try to use them all? I can’t, at least not all at once.

And yet… in astrology it often happens that exactly the one I need right at this moment is there, ready to jump out at me and say, Hi, Notice Me Please.

So very often it may be just exactly some new technique you have been studying or focusing on – and there it is, just in time to explain that one little part of the chart you need to notice right now.

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Two Eye Vision

One of the weird and wonderful things about the world of astrology is the fact that there are many different systems for practicing it, but it is not a simple matter of one system being the only correct one.

Different systems seem to work.

I have an earlier post called, Multi-Map Reality, where I described looking a a single chart with two different house systems, and discovering that not only did they both work, but each brought out an important facet of the person’s life that I knew to be true.

They did not contradict; the complemented, and I needed both as part of a larger picture.

It was like a switch from one eye to two eye vision, where now there was a quality of depth.

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Letting Death Back In

Modern astrology, like much of our modern culture in general, does not welcome open talk about death. It is sometimes even taboo to use the word.

Never mention death when delineating a chart – some astrologers consider that immoral to mention – obscene might be a better word.

Always say something positive!

Death is a strong word, and a strong, emotionally charged topic, and yes we need to proceed with care and concern when we discuss it.

But – leave out talking about death – and you are excluding people who are dealing with, or have dealt with, the death of a loved one.

There is a pain in their heart they are not allowed to talk about, which adds a sense of isolation and even uncleanness to the hurt.

In earlier posts in this journal – for instance, this post on my two saturn returns – I mentioned that my wife died of cancer in November 2009, so I know this hurt and isolation firsthand.

I need to talk about Death here, out in the open.

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Multi-Cultural Astrology

I grew up in New York City, in a kind of run-down, lower middle class neighborhood. From the time I could be outside and relating to other kids, I was surrounded by people with different cultural backgrounds – German, Mexican, Irish, Italian, Chinese, and some others I didn’t know how to pronounce. We had different values, different religions, different family models, so part of our job as kids was to figure out a way to find common ground despite those differences.

I grew up surrounded by multiple models of reality interacting together, sometimes harmoniously, sometimes not.

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Opposed and Embracing

Take an opposition aspect.  It relates to the symbolism of the number two, so it is complementary pairs, it is partners – but it is also adversaries, opponents. It can be experienced as a split, or as a dance.

A lot of the purpose of this Site, and of a book I’m working on,  will be to look at pairs of opposites that we have set in antagonism to each other, and find a way to include them as part of a larger complementary whole.

Here I want to look at a pair of opposites, a split, that many, many creative people in our culture go through – the experience of being an Outsider, someone outside the pale or unwelcome in society, and hence in opposition tension over against it.

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That’s not what Malefic means

I am in the middle of reading Stephen Arroyo’s excellent book, Astrology, Karma and Transformation.

Here is the opening sentence of the chapter on Saturn, which starts on page 71.

“Until recent years, the planet Saturn was usually referred to in most astrological books as a “malefic” influence, a dimension of experience that most people would rather not face but which merely had to be endured for no positive purpose whatsoever.”

That is all well and good, except for one minor problem:

That is not what “malefic” means!

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