It’s been several weeks, several months since I wrote a text to explain a foundation of the use of astrology « otherwise ». You are many to follow this site and to find a different expression of what you have seen elsewhere in astrology. Why?
Most astrological teachings identify you with the shape of your birth chart and make judgments about you that determine and lock you into a form of life. They say to you, « You are like this, it is terrible and it will not change! It is distressing just as much as telling you that because you are a Christian you will live in a state of sin, or that because you are a woman, you will have to hide and live in suffering.
I do not do that. I do not believe that. To identify deeply with one’s theme is a mistake from a spiritual point of view. The theme is not the revelation of your deep self, of your Being. The theme reveals the experience, the role you have chosen to embody in your life. We are not the role we embody. To believe that is like believing that an actor is the same being as the role he embodies in a film. The birth chart is a scenario, a synopsis, a character, call it the way you want, but it is not about your Inner Being. Do not look for a mystical revelation of your inner self through the astral theme, you would fall into the trap of an identification to the form of your existence and pass by the substance.
It’s a little suicidal for an astrologer to say that. It is as if a priest said to his parishioners, « Stop identifying yourself with my church, stop believing that you are Christians! But that’s exactly what I think deeply and what I believe intimately. For the priests also ;-). The churches would have much to gain by ceasing to support the sense of community identity. You are not your birth chart, any more than a Christian, a Muslim or a Buddhist is not about his practices or his religious beliefs. You are not limited to this form of life. There is in each of us a deeper essence that goes beyond the role we have come to play.
So what is the purpose of the birth chart? What is the point of studying astrology? What is the use of spending so much time and devoting so much energy to understanding what is in our birth chart?
Astrology serves two things:
- To accept us as we are,
- To understand that we can hatch the rose on our pile of manure.
The theme, revealing the role or experience of our incarnation, allows us to accept who we are, what we came to live. Often we think we are offbeat, abnormal, unsuited to feel what we feel. We do not understand each other and we do not accept ourselves as we are because we judge what we are. The natal chart, revealing to us, with a distance that makes it objective, our singularity, allows us to accept the unique character of our life experience. In doing so, we can accept this choice of life and become responsible instead of living in the belief that what we have lived and what we live is bad, evil or unfair. Little by little, studying the theme of birth makes us responsible for ourselves. It allows us to take control of our life experience and to accept it.
It is at this moment that we risk identifying too strongly with its theme, its role, its experience, and that we can be misled, hardening our ego instead of freeing ourselves. When you study astrology deeply, the recognition of its history, its experiences, and its emotions through the theme is so strong that one can be fascinated by these discoveries. For years we felt alone and misunderstood, and suddenly, the theme can draw before you a mirror of your life of incredible accuracy. It’s fascinating to feel suddenly understood, recognized. When we enter this fascination, we risk then worshipping astrology, ask it to solve all our worries, to be our new goddess. We feel so well recognized in it that we want to merge with our theme. We discover the « reasons » for our states of tension, our crises, and « everything is explained. » « Ah, I understand everything, if I am so unhappy, it is because of my square Mars Pluto opposed to my Sun in house XII in Aries under the control of Mars! It’s obvious! » Yes and then? It’s like in psychoanalysis. If we stop at the observation that we are afraid of water because Uncle Jacques has « amused himself » to put our head under water in the open sea, what do we do after? If we identify with the suffering of the past or its theme, it’s the same thing, we’re standing still. We do not move forward, we do not change.
Therefore, in astrology, it is important to study behind the appearance of difficulties, hardships, sufferings or blockages revealed by the structure of the theme, the deep teaching that is hidden there. There is no suffering on Earth which is associated with a profound discovery of an essential and sacred character of life. Suffering does not exist to punish us, but to awaken us to a state that transcends it.
There is in each position of a birth chart that marks a difficulty or a suffering, a consciousness that sublimates it. When I say that, I often hear people say, « It’s easy to say when you’re rich and healthy, but what about a person who has been raped, beaten, or crippled for life? Unjust and insurmountable sufferings! «
I suggest a little thought about this through a little story.
I am a rich man, married to a beautiful woman, happy in the household and father of an adorable little girl. I love my wife deeply. I am sporty and adventurous, I love and I live life to the fullest. My businessisgood. My life is a dream.
My wife falls seriously ill. I live for months during her suffering and her agony until her death, fromwhich I do not recover. I find myself widowed with a very young girl to raise. I lose track ofher education that escapes me. Later a violent accident paralyzes me of the four limbs. All I have left is the capacity to talk and a clumsy finger to express myself.
I have no autonomy anymore. I depend on people around me to feed, wash, get dressed and machines to move and express myself. I have no authority over my daughter. I lost the love of my life, the use of my body, my autonomy, my means of action, I live locked in an inert and useless body. I am deeply depressed. I have suicidal thoughts. I want to get over with this life.
Does not this man have every reason in the world to believe that life has been fierce to him for his greatest misfortune? Or, on the contrary, does he not have every reason to believe that in a way he deserved such punishment? What would he have concluded if he had been told that his life consisted of living death and confinement and then nothing? Would he not have found that this was unfortunately the truth and that it was very sad? Would not he have identified himself with all this suffering with no way out? Would he not have had every reason to say to himself that it was thus, that it was written in his theme, that he was made to suffer?
Do you think that with such a story, a man can be happy again? Do you think that even with all the gold in the world,he can recover happiness and joie de vivre? Do you think there is a gift behind this deterioration? Behind this probably violent theme?
Really think about the question. Think about it as if it were your own story, that of your best friend or brother. Stop reading for a minute to project yourself into this vision. Make it yours. You see yourself crippled with all the memories of your happy days in your head.
Is it possible to imagine a gift behind such a lapse, behind such physical and moral suffering? It is almost insulting to dare to say that there may be a gift behind that? Is it? Such an eventuality becomes a taboo does is not? You would not mention this idea to such a person?
Yet the gift did exist. This man has found happiness. We almost all know this man’sstory. It went around the world. This is the story of Philippe Pozzo di Borgo (author of the book The Second Breath), quadriplegic since 1993, one of the heroes of the film « Untouchables ».
There are no living conditions that can determine our happiness or our misfortune. To be happy or unhappy depends only on our inner state. Our birth chart is a journey, a life experience that offers a form of life. But the form is not the substance.
Be aware of your life experience, your living conditions through your theme, but do not identify with it. You are much bigger than that. Astrology as a whole is nothing compared to what each of us contains in it.
What you recognize that is different in the astrology that I practice is something like that. I do not identify you with your theme whatsoever. I never find an ugly theme because I am deeply convinced that the theme is only the choice of an experience, and that this choice does not limit us. Often they say to me: « Ah la la, when you go to see my theme, you will find me less appealing ». This never happens to me. I never have an uncomfortable feeling at the sight of a theme. I cannot do it. I asked myself about this often. Maybe my lack of sensation on a theme was related to inexperience, credulity, an excess of benevolence that makes me switch to naïve teddy bear mode.
I can tell you: « Your theme asks you to become self-referent, honest and responsible in the field of your professional choices. If you do not take this path, you risk losing situations or being under the authority of others in your professional life. I know that by saying this to you, your inner voice tells you « It is true that I constantly groan and claim professional situations without taking control of this field. Here I am warned. «
And that’s enough. You know that you can choose to be different. It’s your choice.
But I cannot say to you: « You will live multiple lapses in the field of your professional life. I have studied your directions, transits and solar revolutions and that will happen in 2018, 2034 and 2057 … If you live that long … « The truth is that I do not know and that it does not interest me. To study this is to put my energy to determine you in your form of life without helping you to become aware of the personal work tofree yourself. We know our difficulties. What is valuable is to understand what consciousness to deploy to cross them without suffering, not to know when we are most likely to succumb painfully. This information is only interesting when you master the first one.
The birth chart is not an end in itself. It is an experience that sets up living conditions. Most of the time, you know them better than anyone. There is no point in getting deep into it. It is much more interesting to look for how to bring a greater and more awakened consciousnessout of this condition of life.
The form is not the substance. You are much more than what is contained in the scenario of your astrological chart.
Exercise your discernment. Do not take what is written as gospel word. Ask your feelings about what you read.
Kindly and marvellously translated by Michel Mathieu & Kathy Maloney (Full of gratitude for them)
Exercez votre discernement. Ne prenez pas ce qui est écrit comme parole d'évangile. Interrogez votre ressenti à propos de ce que vous lisez.