Astrology Bits

Today heralded the arrival of my momentary, fairly regular blip into astrology world! I picked up a new book, The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need by Joanna Woolfolk, and I have once again dedicated a tiny bit of my life to trying to understand the art.

Honestly, I secretly hope to one day broach the complicated topic of horoscopes, which truly brilliant folks like Nostradamus were able to use to gain great insight. I read today the first generalized how-it's-done outline that even began to penetrate that utter darkness in my understanding, but it's still too faint and vague for me to relay that to you!

I spent time on deciphering my own birth chart. The aspects (angles) between the different planets in the chart create varying influences on the effects of the individual planets. I was immensely proud of myself today for creating a table (not original...it was based on another book's table) on Word to enter those aspects for a birth chart. I now have an instantaneous, printable aspect chart! This sounds incredibly simple, but sometimes I can't proceed and make advances until I have a system to reference what I've been through, and I'd always tried to draw the big table by hand in the past, which was a huge disincentive to go there! (The astrology aspect table, though far more simple, is thus functioning for me in astrology analogously to the Family Tree Maker program for genealogy--all of those ever-branching family lines were impossible to organize until I had the program, and until then I was often unable to find elemental information! Blessings to that computer program!)

So, I now officially have a functional aspect chart for my own birth chart. I entered the aspects and then created a simpler chart with only the most significant aspects, as the first had far too much to collate on it.

Today's hours with astrology were a great review, and I found out a couple of new things about my chart. My chart's ruling planet is the moon, which is in Pisces. This is apparently a quite artistic placement, as both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci had this moon sign! Anyhow, I only just learned how to discern the chart's ruling planet; it's the ascendant sign's ruling planet, so mine is the moon since my ascendant is in Cancer and Cancer's ruling planet is the moon. I, of course, identified with all the positive Piscean moon traits that were mentioned...artistic, extremely intuitive, etc. However, she strongly suggested that we Piscean moons have a tendency to see reality through our own 'rose-colored' filters, which I strongly balk at and argue that the rest of my chart counters this influence! Funny how I balk at the negative, but the positive seems dead-on!

Oh, and I laughingly texted Michael today about how this astrology stuff was just a load of rubbish when I found out that my one significant aspect for my sun sign suggested that I am 'conceited, overbearing, and indolent'! Hmmph! Well, I say they're just jealous that I have high self-esteem and lead a relaxed lifestyle! :)

The 'synastry' between charts shows compatibility, and I was struck once again with how well my chart meshes with Michael's. It is truly amazing...we possess nearly every indicator for compatibility that is listed!

Here are some of the big compatibility keys:
1. Ascendant/sun sign matches. If Michael presents with the Ascendant as Gemini, my sun sign Gemini recognizes it and understands!
2. Sun Sign/Sun Sign positive aspect. Michael and I have a very sweet trine between his Aquarius and my Gemini sun signs.
3. Moon Sign/Moon Sign positive aspect. Michael and I have water sign moons, which are inherently compatible, though they don't form a technical trine. Moon signs have to do with emotions and intuition.
4. Venus/Mars conjunction. Michael's Mars and my Venus are both in Taurus. The planets of Venus and Mars have rough associations with love/receptive pleasure and energy/sexual energy, respectively. You can see, then, why this is helpful with compatibility!

Anyhow, these are very specific compatibility keys...they are presented here pretty fully, and Michael and I happen to work aspects in every one of these ways. No, I didn't leave out, for example, the Asc/Asc or Mercury/Venus aspects...those were not particularly mentioned in the 'synastry' section!

I suppose that I won't go into each of my chart's aspects or other specifics, but I am a bit hung up on that whole ruling planet thing tonight!

Intuition plays a HUGE role in my life, and I see connections everywhere (I suppose I'm extrapolating 'intuition' as being related to extrasensory perception in general). If you've read my blog entries over time, you'll see a huge number of 'uncanny' coincidences. I see them numerous times per day, often. Let's see, today I was listening to a 'Shopaholic' book and a museum visit played a major part in today's bit--just before we are taking a trip to see Leonardo da Vinci's exhibit at the High Museum! Michael and I were speaking of a distant friend last night, and she sent me an e-mail today, which was a fairly unusual occurrence. Hmm...well, honestly, I haven't felt completely inundated with coincidences today, but it does happen daily and I am often incredulous at the strength of the 'coincidences' even more than the sheer quantity!

While I'm being utterly woo-woo, I will mention that Alex as Apollo wasn't a random choice. Apollo was god of the sun, and my boy wakes up with the sun and loves light in general. We joked that he 'worshiped' the light when he was a tiny baby, as he would stare and stare at the nightlight and coo at it endlessly. These days, I often waken to find his room light on, the hallway light on, and the bathroom light on, as a single nighttime somnambulant trek to the restroom merits all of these lights, and he apparently isn't even bothered by the bright room lights as he goes back to bed! Hmm, not sure why this seems pertinent, except that casting Alex as Apollo felt right, as though we were recognizing this curious aspect of his being. Also, the ruling 'planet' for Alex's chart is the Sun, as Leo is his Ascendant, but that didn't have anything to do with our choice of Apollo on a conscious level! It was, I suppose, an intuitive manifestation, and this is just one example of how my Piscean moon affects our lives!