The Truth About Astrology

You read your horoscope sometimes.

Admit it, you do. Even if it’s just to scoff or for a good laugh, millions of people read their horoscope everyday – in the newspaper, on the web, and even texted to their phones. Many professional astrologers were exposed to astrology through reading their horoscopes, and some even became astrologers after their intent to disprove it backfired on them!

But what is a horoscope? What makes you an Aries or a Cancer, or a Sagittarius? Does it mean astrology is bogus if your sign description doesn’t fit you? These are the common questions that come up when people who are exposed to everyday “Cosmo” pop astrology start wanting to know what astrology’s really all about.

What’s Your Sign, Baby?

You identify your designated sign by knowing your birth date. If you were born roughly from August 23rd to September 22nd, you are known as a Virgo. If you were born roughly from February 18th to March 20th, you are known as a Pisces. But why?

Your ‘sign’ is more specifically known as your sun sign. Your sun sign is the sign that the sun was traveling through on the date of your birth. If you were born roughly from February 18th to March 20th, the sun was traveling through the section of sky that has been designated as Pisces since Babylonian times.

But the sun is not the only heavenly body in the sky.

What is a Horoscope?

While most people would identify a horoscope as that little paragraph in the newspaper or a magazine that tells you what fate will befall you on any given day, the real definition of a horoscope is actually an entire chart of the sky, with various heavenly bodies placed within it, showing their locations. The sun, moon, and the rest of the planets (even Pluto) and occasionally even some of the prominent asteroids are mapped out in a chart, which is a circular representation of the sky all around the earth. You are more than one sign because while the sun may have been in Pisces, for instance, when you were born, the moon might have been in Gemini, and Mars in Cancer, and so on.

How is a Chart Used?

An astrology chart is simply a map of the sky at any given time. The most popular time to cast a chart is at the moment of something’s birth, whether it’s a business, a nation, or most commonly, a person. The chart is cast for that moment and the meaning that is derived from analyzing all the placements and connections in that chart is representative of the life of the thing that has been born. It is like the blueprint – it shows the plans and the inner structure of something.

Each planet placed in a chart is a symbol. Each represents a part of us, an urge or issue that we all deal with and work out as part of the human experience. For instance, the sun represents one’s core identity as I mentioned above, but the moon represents one’s emotional self, and Venus one’s relationship life, and so on. The signs are sets of characteristics and desires, to put it simply. When an astrologer analyzes the meaning of a chart, they must understand the planet’s meaning, and then combine it with the sign’s meaning. If a person’s chart shows that Venus, a planet of relationship, was in the section of the sky known as Taurus, a sign that represents stability and practicality, an astrologer can understand that this person may desire relationships that are stable and comfortable, as well as somewhat predictable, whereas someone who had a chart showing Venus in the sign of Sagittarius might enjoy a relationship that is more open-ended and spontaneous. This is an exceptionally simplistic view of the complexity of what a chart can illuminate.

Do the Stars Really Control Your Fate?

This is really a question of belief, although I will say that this astrologer’s opinion is no, they do not. The chart can be seen as the representation, just like a blueprint for a house, or the x-ray of a person. It shows truth, but does not cause that truth. Looking at a chart and its symbolism to understand a person is simply a unique way to see the insides of someone and therefore get a unique perspective on some truths about that person. Many astrologers, including myself, look at the chart not as what we already are, but the plan for what we are becoming, the lessons we’re wrestling with, the strengths we’re developing, the pitfalls we’re trying to learn to avoid. Popular astrology leaves no room for free will or conscious choice, but real astrology as practiced by a skilled and experienced astrologer, celebrates free will while providing guidance and insight in how we can become our best selves.

“We are born at a given moment in a given place and like vintage years of wine we have the qualities of the year and of the season in which we are born. Astrology does not lay claim to anything else.” – Carl Gustav Jung

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Amy has been a consulting and teaching astrologer since 1995 and graduated from renowned astrologer Steven Forrest’s Evolutionary Astrology Apprenticeship program with his high personal recommendation. She has a wide client base all over the world and is known for her insightful personal readings and wry humor. Her first book, Astrology of the Moon, will be published by Llewellyn in summer 2010. She teaches and lectures continually about astrology and offers many free resources at her website such as the 10 Minute Astrology video series and a learning library of more articles like this one. You can go to her website www.heavenlytruth.com to check it all out!