Hi, if you’re new to astrology and if you’ve ever looked at a horoscope, what we also call a “birth chart” or a “natal chart,” you may have been mystified by all the squiggly glyphs and lines and numbers. One of the things we intend to do in this course is de-mystify this code of astrology. These mysterious glyphs and numbers are in fact, another language, one that we trust you will learn to value as much as we do. This language has been around far longer than any of us, even any of our respective cultures, whether you be American, Asian, Italian, Australian or any of the many cultures in our world today. This language was created so long ago that we don’t even know exactly when, but it predates mankind. So, it is a language with which your Higher Self is very familiar. By learning this language, you will literally learn shorthand for communicating with that higher part of your self, another specific skill we intend to teach in this course. As with any language we need to learn the structure and grammar as well as the vocabulary.
Let’s dive in, shall we? What the ancients were challenged with was bringing the heavens down to earth in some fashion so that we could view more than just what is visible in our skies at any given moment. Why did they care? Long before we had a written language of any kind, people had not only been staring at and studying the stars, but they were interacting with them. They had already determined that these heavenly bodies had an impact on us but also, that we have an impact on them, that some force – which today we call electro-magnetism – acted upon us when these bodies were in certain relationships with each other and with the planet we stand upon. They realized that these impacts could not only be examined to understand past events but could help predict the future. And that this understanding could help us in our daily lives as well as our spiritual evolution.
Thus, creating some sort of “map” became the goal with the horoscope the result. As they began to plot the heavens it became apparent that the celestial bodies which energetically impacted us the most fell within a narrow, 16 degree-wide band which circled the earth, geocentrically speaking, meaning from our perspective here on planet Earth. Within this band fell 12 constellations which would predictably show up at the same time every year. These constellations were given names which reflected not only their unique morphological composition of fixed stars but also their seeming impacts upon us tiny humans, impacts which were repetitive each year when they showed up in the same spot again. These 12 constellations which were far out in the Milky Way Galaxy, well beyond our solar system became the beginnings of a map. This band, called the Ecliptic was divided into 12 equal segments and the prominent constellation within each segment became the “sign.”
The next items of known impact were the wandering planets within our solar system which were not as easy to plot due to varying orbits but which were much closer to us and therefore even more impactful than the constellations AND which also stayed within this ecliptic belt already described. To these were assigned the names of gods and goddesses, such as the god of war, Aries, the god of the underground, Pluto and the goddess of beauty, Venus. So powerful are these archetypes that their meanings are still important to us today and will be included in this course.
All that was still needed was a two-dimensional map upon which to place these things and thus, the zodiacal wheel was born. The houses are a man-made, fixed structure represented by a spoked wheel into which fit a different constellation or sign. Every facet of life and every experience we can have fits into one or another of the 12 Houses. Each segment contains accouterments of the personality which have a common collective sympathy with each other. The signs of the zodiac are displayed in an outer band and appear to rotate in a clockwise direction as the Earth spins on its axis. It was decided to start the zodiacal year on the Spring Equinox when day and night are even and when Aries crosses the celestial equator. Thus Aries became the first sign of the zodiac. The word “zodiac” is Greek for, “A circle of animals.”
We can now place all 12 signs on the cusp of one of these imaginary houses; imaginary yet they represent all the externa which bombards our brain, our being. While traditional astrologers only deal with 10 planets, esoteric astrologers have 12; thus, we have one house associated with one sign and they in turn are associated with one planet. This triumvirate of relationships shares characteristics which will be important for us to memorize; this will become our vocabulary. Those squiggly little glyphs we mentioned in the beginning each symbolize a sign or a planet while the numbers have to do with how many degrees the planet has moved into the 30-degree sign. The glyphs of astrology have been shaped since antiquity to symbolize the cosmic principles which they represent. Using these glyphs, we can accurately plot where the signs/constellations and the planets were at the time
of birth.
Of course, although we can now capture a moment in time, the heavens never stop moving. Every sign of the zodiac comes up over the horizon within a 24-hour period, meaning that every two hours, a new sign is “Rising.” We call this sign the Rising Sign or the Ascendant. We esoteric astrologers believe this is the most important part of the entire chart. This sign is the first indicator of your Soul’s Purpose and the most important reason why the time of birth is so important for this astrology. Traditional astrologers do not rely so heavily upon this factor.
In esoteric astrology we are meant to take into account our human circumstances as well as our eschatology, the activity of our higher Self, previous lives, out-of-body experience, dreams, meditation, spiritual development, Soul’s Purpose and karma. To facilitate the registering and expressing of all these possible components in our character and behavior we take this great globe and flatten it into a disc divided into 12 segments into which we place a circle of constellations/signs moving clockwise to the center – which is us – and another circle of planets moving counter- clockwise at widely varying paces. And so, in the heavens, the bands of the planets and the signs constantly rotate, combine and recombine and at birth, each Planet comes into alignment with a particular Sign and House. This combination is termed an aspect and contains all the astrological meanings which comprise a human being.