An astrology chart depicts the location of each of the planets, the Sun and the Moon from the place a person was born, at the time they were born. So it is essentially a local map of the heavens at the birth moment.

The relationship between the planets and our lives is a primarily a symbolic one, not a direct causal one.  The different planets, signs and houses symbolise various aspects of our personalities and our life and the events in it.

But they do not cause it.

It is not possible to understand this relationship by viewing life from a traditional scientific perspective. Rather it is necessary to recognise the quantum nature of life, and the interconnectedness of all living things. That ultimately the whole of life is one expression. From this perspective something that happens on the macrocosmic scale of the solar system (the movement of the planets) is reflected in and describes the microcosm, i.e. a person and their life.

“As above, so below” as the ancients said.

The connection between the two is an acausal one – ‘synchronicity’ as the psychiatrist, psychologist and astrologer Carl Jung called it. The position of the planets point to what is happening in our life in much the same way that the hands on a clock tell us the time, but do not cause the time.

A birth (or natal) chart can be seen as the energetic make-up of a person’s psyche. The locations of the planets and how they connect with each other accurately describe how we tend to view and behave in the world – how we respond or react to what happens in our lives.

This moves us away from a fated or deterministic universe where our lives are dictated by outside forces that we have no control over. When the planets are recognized as being symbolic of different aspects of our being, then it means we have a say in what happens.

We cannot choose our chart – for example, a person born under the sun sign of Libra can’t become an Aries, no matter how hard they try – yet within the symbolism of our own personal chart there are still infinite possibilities of expression. So there is a whole spectrum of potential behaviours for a person with Sun in Libra.

Personal growth or spiritual growth can be seen to be the movement away from lower expressions of our birth chart to a more skillful or higher expression. The more we embody the higher nature of our chart, the better life tends to get and the more happy and fulfilled we become.

Even a very basic understanding of our birth chart beyond our Sun sign – e.g. Sun’s house position, Moon’s sign and house placement, Rising Sign and Nodes of the Moon placement – can give us key insights into important life themes and lessons that we are here to learn as an embodied Soul.

The Ancients knew all of this, and humanity is again awakening to this powerful doorway to knowing its truth!