ancient wisdom through new eyes

Charts are starting to speak to me, and it’s such an enlivening experience. Now that I’ve broken through the initial barrier of understanding how to interpret the layer of symbols at a glance, the quadrants, hemispheres, and topical view of the circle of spirit/cross of matter… little sparks of light are emerging.

Insights as I look at other people’s charts and begin to craft stories or find patterns, contemplations of how these celestial ingredients might make for one hell of a human.

And I’ve only just begun this journey. I haven’t touched the degrees yet.

I’ve had a surface-level understanding of houses for the past several years, but I had no idea how much richness there was to be found in this layer.

For instance, bits of my chart look like this:

Scorpio Moon + Rising, Sagittarius Pluto in the 1st House of Aries.

Aquarius Mars, Mercury, Uranus, and Juno in the 3rd House, along with Capricorn Sun and Neptune also in the 3rd House. That’s 6 planets in the house of Gemini.

Drawing the correlations to where Aries or Gemini themes + flavors interplay with my Scorpio/Sag/Aquarius/Cappy placements has been a game-changer.

As has the idea of finding my medicine or ““healing balm”” in the opposite sign - so leaning on Taurus, Leo, Cancer, Libra, and Sag archetypes + themes to fight against the natural gravitational pull of my chart. Ironically, those opposing signs are all much more interpersonal + relationally focused than my natal placements lead me to be without some conscious effort.

dropping the lens of identification

Perhaps the most important insight that has emerged from my studies so far, is that I’m no longer seeing astrology as a system of who we are. Rather, it’s a language of energies - ones we are born to know intimately and others that we have to venture off on a great quest to embody. Ultimately, the goal is wholeness. The goal is to touch or taste ALL of the signs and find your unique expression within the equilibrium of spirit incarnated as matter.

I’m removing the boxes around my identity that “I am x, y, z” signs and instead flirting with verbiage like “I am close with x, y, z” signs, “I understand x, y, z” energies, “I am comforted by x, y, z” energies, “I am triggered or threatened" by x, y, z” energies.

This resonates with me as I also explore the recurring themes or patterns in the charts around me - how we tend to draw in certain opposing signs to highlight the areas for growth or expansion within our own chart. Those connections can feel electric but confronting, and perhaps quite unstable.

Images are both from Pinterest