New doors of perception are opened … new levels of consciousness are experienced … ancient truths re-emerge … intuitive sciences re-emerge … understanding beyond that of the rational mind is rediscovered … the head once more becomes united with the heart … humankind once more merges with its source, with its God, with its light — the deep truth of its deepest levels of being.
Why study astrology? What is the purpose of interpretation?
One good reason is because it’s fun.
And another very good reason is that astrology can open us up intuitively … It can be a very useful tool for finding your path … seeing the face of God within you … and within others.
Each of the 12 signs has its own unique energy … its own skillful means … its own path … its own power. It’s all part of the beauty and the bounty of the Universe. There are infinite possibilities — and these are reflected when we use a tool such as astrology … or Tarot, or Zen meditation, or music, or dance … or whatever.
Every chart is a Mandala — a complete cosmology in itself … a map of the entire Universe. The ‘macrocosm-microcosm’ teaching is brilliant, and very deep: As above, so below. As below, so above. Each little piece of the Universe is in its own way a complete Universe, reflecting the whole. In the atom, the galaxy is mirrored.
So we can, if we wish, look at a chart as a purely ‘arbitrary’ design, on a piece of paper, that we will sit with, and see what associations will arise … As we take this time to look, as we do this ritual, we start to see many things … Mirrors within mirrors … The chart reflects the person … the person reflects the chart … the chart reflects the Universe … the person reflects the Universe … They are all the same…
The purpose of interpretation is to find your own path … whatever that may mean to you … Every person’s path is different — everyone has a unique birth chart.
Each sign is a face of God … each of us is evolving in our own unique, individual way. Astrology, clearly used, can reflect that evolution.
First, imagine this…
You are living about 10,000, or 50,000, years ago, on some beautiful part of this planet Earth…
Maybe you tend sheep, or maybe you are simply into stargazing during the quiet nights … You spend many, many evenings looking into the clear night sky, and from the apparent chaos of all the stars, an order, a pattern emerges: you become aware of the constellations, the different, fixed patterns of all the stars … You find names for the patterns, describing their shapes and meanings, names like Orion the Hunter, the Scorpion, and the Great Bear, or the Big Dipper…
Then, you begin to notice the “Wanderers,” or the “Planets” — the especially bright stars which do not belong in any constellation, but wander thru the night sky…
Then, you notice that the Wanderers, too, follow a pattern, a path in which they rise in the east and set in the west, like the Sun during the day. Each night, the Wanderers are seen against the backdrop of a certain constellation, but, over the weeks and months, they slowly and regularly move into other constellations … Because they all rise and set in about the same place, the “Wanderers” — including the Moon, and even the Sun — wander thru the same string of constellations, in a regular order. There happens to be 12 constellations in the string, making a full circle above and below the earth — this is the Zodiac — it is the backdrop against which we see the planets, always. The names of these constellations are familiar to you: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and so on thru Pisces — then you come to Aries again…
Soon you become aware that the planets, moving thru the constellations, are a giant, cosmic clock with which you can measure time.
The Sun takes one year to travel thru all 12 signs of the Zodiac. The Moon takes only one month — the fastest moving “Planet” of all — which is why it is a symbol for change … (When, in astrology, you refer to the “Planets,” you are also including the Sun and the Moon.)
Jupiter takes 12 years for a complete revolution thru the Zodiac … and Saturn takes 28 or 29 years — a symbol for age, time, experience … an important symbol for stages of evolution…
You can clearly see with the ‘naked’ eye the seven planets which were known to all ancient peoples: Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.
Then, once you are aware of the regular, clocklike nature of the planetary cycles, you begin making the connections which truly gave birth to the ancient intuitive science and artform of astrology: You begin to notice correspondences with things that happen when certain planets are in certain signs. This phenomenon bears out the deep truth attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, who is said to have introduced advanced forms of astrology to the West at the beginning of the Egyptian era:
As above, so below;As below, so above.
These connections were probably first made with the sun: when it enters into the sign (or constellation) of Aries, the first burst of Spring is here … when the sun moves into Taurus, we settle into the middle of Spring … when it moves into Gemini, changes start happening again … unpredictable weather … When it moves into Cancer, Summer is here to stay … With Leo, we find the intense heat of mid-summer … With Virgo, we find things changing again … With Libra, Autumn bursts forth in all her beauty … When the sun goes into Scorpio, it gets stormy and tempestuous … With Sagittarius comes the good cheer of the holiday season … With Capricorn comes Winter and the mastery it requires … With the month of Aquarius, we move into higher levels of being, making evolutionary leaps … With the month of Pisces, we can experience the depth and death of Winter … the deepest mystical awareness, beyond words…
So, by watching the Sun move thru the constellations, you could see (and therefore project and plan for) the year thru the seasons…
Within the general, monthly changes of the Sun cycle, then, you begin to notice the subtler, more rapidly changing influences of the Moon cycle — moving thru all 12 signs of the Zodiac every month.
By watching the Moon, and the other planets, and by noticing the changes which happen within you and around you as the Moon and the planets change signs, you begin to make a vast, subconscious (perhaps) catalog of the correspondences…
And astrology is born.
Many of the keys to learning astrology are found within the symbols themselves … It’s like learning the Tarot cards — the pictures themselves are the teachers, and can convey more information than thousands of words.
Look at the symbols for each sign, and sit with it … It may seem enigmatic — but just let each symbol soak into your deeper levels of being … There, it has a lot of meaning for you.
 | Aries, the Ram … the symbol is a Ram’s head — a symbol of energy bursting forth… |
 | Taurus, the Bull … the symbol is the Bull’s head — a symbol of power, energy grounded in the Earth. |