Astrology and Your Birth Chart By Gill Potter

What Does it All Mean?

The Birth chart or horoscope is a picture or snapshot of the heavens when observed from a certain point on the Earth and the picture changes every few minutes. That's why it’s unique and can clearly show exactly what it is you came to Earth to be and do. When its interpreted from your soul's perspective it’s very illuminating and can help you to understand more of your life path and journey.

As Carl Jung who studied and worked with astrology said, “Whatever is born or done this moment of time has the qualities of this moment of time.”

Gill Potter is the author of Sacred Paths Entwined. Gill works with clients worldwide using astrology and archetypes to know more about their life path and purpose. Contact Gill at [email protected] or for more information visit www.joyfulsteps.com.

Shedding Light

Can astrology shed light on divine potential and sacred path?

The 3 most important factors in understanding your life purpose and divine potential are:

1. The rising sign (Ascendant) which is calculated by the moment you take your first breath at birth

2. The chart ruler(s) (soul centred and personality rulers) and their placement and aspects

3. The North and South node

These can only be worked out from an accurate birth chart and not from sun sign astrology.

One of the most empowering ways of viewing astrology and your birth chart, is to see it as a mirror of the synchronistic events occurring in your external world.
Richard Tarnos author of ‘Cosmos and Psyche’ and ‘Passion of the Western Mind’, views it as a profound method to understand how you as an individual fit into the whole.
Big synchronicities often happen with life crisis, births and deaths or when falling in love. They do happen regularly at other times in life but often we only pay attention to the big ones and miss the smaller ones.

The 12 Houses

In a birth chart the 12 houses are described briefly as follows:

• 1st house which relates in the natural zodiac to Aries; personality expression, ego, the mask that you wear to the world, appearance, environment, and your soul’s purpose

• 2nd House rules Taurus and is concerned with your money, values, talents, sense of self-worth and security

• 3rd House rules Gemini and is the arena of communication, education, lower mind of the personality and speech

• 4th House and the very root of your chart naturally rules Cancer, and is concerned with your inherited characteristics and your home and family, roots, childhood heritage and father image (or hidden parent)

• 5th House rules Leo and governs creativity, children, love, romance and lovers, recreation and fun

• 6th House and the natural home to Virgo is concerned with the area of work, health, self-purification, daily routine, tasks, habits, service and pets

• 7th House is the one opposite your ascendant sign and show who you are not. It naturally rules Libra and is the classroom to look at for lessons in relationships, marriage and/or business partnerships, your awareness of others and even open enemies

• 8th House is the ruler of Scorpio and overlooks your partner’s values whether in marriage or business, money, sex, death and transformation, crisis and regeneration

• 9th House rules Sagittarius and is concerned with your philosophy, belief systems, higher education, travel, higher consciousness and the very beliefs that hold your world together

• 10th House rules Capricorn and this is the sign of initiation, status, goals, destiny, career, mother image, social values, life direction and highest potential

• 11th House rules Aquarius and is related to group awareness, social conscience and service, hopes & wishes, friends and groups -like Twitter

• 12th House relates to Pisces which is the last sign of the zodiac and is concerned with dissolution of the ego into the oneness of life, unconscious, hidden strengths and weaknesses, spirituality, sacrifice, past-lives, surrender experiences and miracles

Lessons

We all have to learn lessons in these 12 classrooms depending on where your planets land in your own birth chart, either in natal terms i.e. when you were born, or by transit; which is when a planet apparently spends time in the classroom to teach you a specific lesson.

Transits will give an indication of the lessons you are working on in your life (and the natal chart on your life lessons and purpose), at this point in time which are encouraging you to grow and thus to evolve you!

An accurate time of birth is essential to calculate a rising sign as this point changes sign every 2 hours. Once we have calculated this point you can say that this is the 1^st house or sector, and place the other 12 houses in a circle in an anti-clockwise direction. You are then able to ascertain which area the planets fall in and the emphasis or life pattern is in place. It is a blueprint and although it may appear that you are fated to have certain experiences, you always have the ability to flow with your destiny and inner divinity or to obstruct or challenge it. Thus you have free will to choose to grow through joy and release struggle. This can be an important turning point!

Destiny

Ultimately you are here on Earth to become the master of your own destiny and understand that the lessons you are learning are for your highest good and were chosen by your Soul, so that you could be empowered to experience all you came to do in your Sacred Contract and to ultimately fulfil your destiny.

So your birth chart is a moment frozen in time – a picture of the heavens as they appeared at the time of your birth from the place of your birth. However, the planets don’t remain stationary at birth: they keep moving and as they do, they aspect other planets and angles in your birth chart, or they return to where they were at birth, therefore triggering off the potential inherent within the chart. The birth chart is a map of your psyche, or the seed from which all our potential can flow. The enfoldment occurs under the transits and progressions, which are indicators of the timing of your seed’s evolvement.

The Process

Each of you is in a continual process of unfoldment and the birth chart can put you in touch with the higher plan for your life or the bigger picture, as seen and co-created by the higher part of our being. To work creatively and positively with this wiser part of your being, you have to believe that all your lessons are being meted out by your own soul (which is intimately connected to your inner divinity).

This helps you to grow and evolve into the beautiful being you already are, deep within and know ourselves as divinity incarnated. Therefore, expanding your consciousness is one of the main purposes of astrology. It is not about fortune telling or being psychic. It is about listening and observing your inner world and all the outer events occurring in your life. You can then relate this to the birth chart and the symbolic language and story it depicts of your unfolding life.

Astrology and the symbols correctly interpreted can be a positive and is a useful guide to your higher path and enables you to see your life from a much higher perspective, than you may normally view it.