This post takes as a premise and elaborates upon a previous one which presented the perspective of an acausal, or symbolic, understanding of Astrology (which you can find here). In this point of view, the planets are not considered the cause of the events unfolding in our lives, rather, they are submitted or representative, just like us and everything happening above and below, outside and inside (as expressed in Hermeticism) to a meaning wanting to emerge. We, the planets, our interiority, events, the cosmos, are all manifestations and symbols, of a pre-existing message or sense.
Here are some basic definitions of the key terms used in this short exposition :
- Sacrifice : the act of giving up something that we deem valuable. Destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else.
- Fate : a higher principle or power that predetermines inevitable events.
- Symbol : something that stands for or suggests something else (a meaning, a sense, in the present context).
- Manifestation : the sign of something existing or happening. Said sign can be «exterior» to ourselves (ie. physical, concrete events) or «interior» (belonging to the psyche realm ; emotions for example).
- Creativity : the ability to create, to bring into existence, something new and/or original, unusual.
Knowing Thyself
Some of you may have noticed that, as you know yourself better, as you grow wiser, some parts of your chart start manifesting another way. Maybe that Sun Square Mars, that in the first part of your life represented your conflicts with your father or with some authority figures, got to symbolize later on your self-reliance capacity, or your high drive for accomplishments, or your difficulties to match your identity with your actions. On the contrary, how many people, not inclined towards introspection and/or change in their behavior, do act or react the exact same way year after year, living strikingly repetitive events ?
The symbolism stays the same, but how it manifest differs.
The question that unfolds is then : What if our Free Will resides in how we choose (or, are able) to incarnate (or manifest) the meaning wanting to appear (represented, for example, by our astrological birth chart) ? If such is true then the old and ever taught goal of secret mysteries schools and esoterism, that is, to know thyself («and you will know the universe and the gods») makes all the sense. Gnosis as a mean towards liberation.
The more we know ourselves and the potential possibilities at hand within our astrological configuration, the more we are able to navigate consciously the waters of Fate. Our birth chart would then be the template from which, once sufficiently known and understood, one can choose its way of generating his/her life.
But what is being discussed about the natal chart can also be applied to the transits and predictive techniques in general.
Indeed, as mentioned in the introduction, we’ll consider here that all that is happening at a given moment (for example : a Saturn-Venus opposition, a break up, a loss of money, an obstacle in an artistic endeavor, etc.) can be seen as different manifestations of the meaning hiding behind the symbol. A symbol can of course have a multitude of interpretations. That is the reason why it is sometimes hard for astrologers to be too assertive in their discourse in regards to what «will happen».
Though, could we somehow narrow the scope of manifestation, and «force» the meaning to manifest in a specific way, more «beneficial» to us ? Could we exert some form of grip over Destiny, that some might call Magic ? If so, how ?
Sacrifice
Let’s take an overly simplified example : Saturn is transiting someone’s 8th House. Some basic delineations could be : limitations with finances or with the money from other people, inheritance, problems in regards to intimacy within the couple, confrontation to death in someway or another, etc.
Now, what would happen if the person, living that transit, willingly decides to stop using money he/she was receiving from his/her partner or to put an halt to the intimate side of the relationship ?
Or expressed another way : what if the person sacrifices this or that to Saturn ? The current Meaning (represented by the transit) ends up manifested and as such, the appearance of other dreaded possibilities is not «necessary».
Of course, the amplitude with which we have the capacity to move the Wheel of Fortune probably depends on a wide range of factors.
At what moment of the transit does the Sacrifice have to be done ? What is the orb to consider ? Does it have to be done regularly (through out the transit) or once ? Or maybe, increasingly (in «potency» ?) as the aspect (or house ingress) comes into completion ? Could it be that the more we sacrifice the less we will be submitted to what we try to avoid ? Those questions, and more, should need further examination.
Though, if Sacrifice allow for some «deviation» (or «translation», in a physics sense) to take place, wouldn’t a «full» change of direction require, yet, something else ? What could be needed in order to do more than just dodge some hard complications along the way and to carve a new path for ourselves ?
Creativity
In combination with the two elements already mentioned, the third one that should enable us to extract ourselves from the inertia of a «causal timeline» we are currently embedded in (to get into another one) is Creativity.
How many possibilities of Manifestation, of enacting one’s own chart, are there ? Probably more than we can imagine. Yet, all the factors that are to be taken into account could make the task appear like a daunting one. It could also induce a sense of limitation. But, limitations never were an impediment towards creation. An inspiring work of Art doesn’t need the Artist to have all the tools existing at his disposal to create it. On the contrary, Creativity strives on restraints.
If we are able to get a sense of what lies behind specifics astrological configurations and let our Imagination wander, we should be able to come up with original ways of interpreting it.
Getting creative with how we interpret our birth chart is a way of reshuffling the cards we have been given and have to deal with. In this case, the Sky is not limit, our Creativity is. And Creativity (as well as Imagination) is probably one of the few unlimited ressources the Human being has.
Conclusion
If our Life is the road we walk on, Fate is the territory where that road happen to be. The more we live in a mechanical and causal way (ie dependent from our «past»1 conditioning), the less we are able to deviate from that road, that then seem to be a predetermined layout.
We can also consider that Knowing Thyself is the map of said territory. It indicates where are the rivers, mountains, dangerous places, where we can rest etc. The more detailed and accurate the map is, the more we can anticipate and see how the road is going to be along the «geography» around us.
Sacrifice would correspond to the hard and necessary efforts to put in place if we wish to escape from some of the obstacles indicated on the map. Those deviations, though, won’t be the enough as we might still be following the most visible (causal) trail.
There comes Creativity which is the ability to makes one’s own new and original path.
We can’t really change the territory but we can somehow (with the appropriate tools) choose how we wish to hike on it.
As such, embracing Fate will allow us to navigate through it.
A paradox.
Free Will and Fate are one and the same.
Freedom appears when we accept the Limits and decide to use them rather than feeling constrained by it.
Knowing Thyself, Sacrifice and Creativity are the three pillars upon which we should be able to obtain a sense of Free Will2.
- Although, to be more precise, we do not only receive a conditioning from the past, but also from the future. Indeed, all that was mentioned within this post implies a «plane» existing out of the known «chronological time». As such, the important notion of retrocausality should also be taken into account in this discussion, it will be for another post.
- Of course, a lot of questions remain. One of them being : Imagining we have the capacity to have a conscious effect on our most «causal Destiny», would we able to determine if in the end it is really beneficial for us to change it, to take another route ?
Another one would be : what if, in an even bigger scheme of things, even the fact that we deviate from our initial road is already predetermined…