I have a confession:
I still don’t understand my own birth chart.
I know, I know…but I’m an astrologer! How much can I really know about astrology charts if I don’t even understand my own?! Does that mean I won’t really understand your chart if you come to me for a consult?
Hear me out…this is the magic of astrology ✨ The magic happens when we get to see and use astrology as a mirror for our own evolution as human beings (not to be dramatic or anything).
Our birth chart is a freeze frame of where the planets were the moment we took our first breath, but they didn’t just stop moving then (talk about being dramatic 😂). They keep moving around the Solar System every day. And that movement of the planets is what helps us to grow, to learn, to overcome challenges, and to develop into a new person every day.
The moment you’re reading this, you’re a different person than you were yesterday, or a week ago, or a year ago, or 10 years ago! Each new experience shapes and molds us whether we’re one year old, 10 years old, or 100 years old. Even though your birth chart is a snapshot of the moment you were born, it’s just a blueprint. It gives us the framework, or the energy, that we align with and then gives us the opportunity to evolve into the person we’re going to be through the course of our entire life. Astrology is not fortune-telling, our birth chart does not dictate every moment of our lives. Free will is a thing (and a powerful one at that)! We can embrace the power of choice every day, and this is how we work with the planets as their energies present us with opportunities for learning and growth. As we learn and grow and expand our sense of self, what we’re actually doing every minute, day, year is evolving into our own natal charts.
When you first get to know your chart, here may be planets in your chart that you don’t totally understand, that you don’t feel connected to, or that really don’t feel like a part of you. And that’s okay because that means that that’s a part of yourself that you just haven’t gotten to know yet or maybe just need to learn a little bit more about. Last weekend this was exactly what happened to me when I learned about my Moon from a different perspective.
I just started an apprenticeship with basically a rockstar in the astrology world, Rick Levine. He did a quick interpretation of my chart last weekend and I had a totally earth-shattering moment.
For context, I was born about five hours before a full moon, that means that my Sun and Moon are in opposite signs, Aquarius and Leo, respectively (with a Full Moon the Sun and Moon are always opposite each other because the Moon is fully reflecting the Sun‘s light). Anyway, my Leo moon has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I can make it work, I can kind of close one eye and squint and say oh that’s kind of like me 😂, but it’s definitely one of those planets that I haven’t quite figured out and recognize that I’m evolving into. So, Rick asked me about my chart and I was very honest and said that my Moon still didn’t really make sense to me. Physically, my Moon is very far away from all the other planets in my chart, so it makes sense to me that it doesn’t make sense to me.
One of Rick’s famous lines is that astrology was written by men for men, so when he started talking to me about my Leo Moon he reminded me that the qualities we usually associate with Leo are really what we think about for male lions. So when we’re thinking about what Leo represents, it’s really probably the sign that is most associated with a gendered quality.
He really enlightened me by looking at the lioness instead of the showy male lions with their manes and loud roars. The female lion lives her life with intention, intention to take care of her young, to hunt, to take care of her pride, and to achieve her goals. Viewing my Moon in the light of the lioness and how she lives her life with intention and a quiet assertion helped me to better understand my Leo placement (and might shed some light on any of your Leo placements!).
So, what are the lessons in all of this?
- Even people who have been studying astrology for years are still growing into their charts because they are still going into themselves. Our birth chart lasts a lifetime, so it makes sense that we evolve and grow into it.
- Astrology just happens to be one of the best tools to understand that growth and to gain a new perspective on parts of ourselves that we may not be aware of, comfortable with, or that we may not really want to look at. It can really help us to make informed choices when it comes to our free will because we have at our disposal the magic of the heavens the energies that are surrounding us and we have a little bit of a sneak peek into where those cosmic tides may be carrying us.