If Astrology is Bogus, It Can Still Help You With These Two Practical Things
Astrology is back in fashion, whether you like it or not, so try to meet it with an open mind.
It will be hard to avoid, especially if you’re currently dating. Whether friend or potential lover, an astrology buff might be begging you for your birth time in the near future. Some basic info could help you keep an open mind and play along instead of giving an eye roll.
While it’s far from an exact science due to its interpretive nature, it’s also NOT a religion. (Though someone newly excited about their deep-dive into astrology might ramble as though they’re trying to convert you.) Basically, astrology is the interpretation of the effects that planetary positions have on your life events, personality, and interaction with others. It uses math and astronomy to map out these positions relative to your location on earth at the time you were born.
An astrologer uses your exact birth time and location to cast what’s called a birth chart (or natal chart), which is a map of the sky at the moment you were born. According to astrology, this gives them information about your personality and life events. Everyone else has their own unique birth chart that can be compared to yours. There is even a chart for this current moment that transits, or communicates with, our charts and has additional impact on our lives.
Still sounds like bullshit? Ok. I feel you — I was raised on astrology and even I choose to keep a critical eye.
If you only look at the interpretations as prompts for self-evaluation and not a predictive tool to make every move by, then no harm — no foul, right? Here are two ways I explain astrology’s usefulness to naysayers.
Astrology Helps You Live in Cycles
In astrology, as planets move throughout the sky in real time, they make angles (or transits) to the stationary planets of your birth chart. The more exact the angle, the stronger the effect.
To start monitoring this, it’s easiest to begin with the moon since it moves quickly through the 12 astrological sections of the sky. (It switches signs every 2.5ish days.) Maybe you want to check in with your finances every time the moon is in an Earth sign (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) or your emotional state when it’s in a Water sign (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces).
Will it automatically make you richer if you “harness the power of the moon” about once a week when you sort through your cash and receipts, update your Mint account, or check on your investments? Nope. But it will give you an outside excuse for doing something regularly that’s useful anyway.
As you get into the actual planets, they move more slowly through the sky the farther they are from earth. So those cycles might have less immediate and more over-arching themes. Maybe every 18 months or so when Venus (the planet governing romance) goes retrograde, you spend a little time evaluating what’s worked and what hasn’t in your love life. There are countless possibilities for self-evaluation with astrology and transits.
You could even look at the astrology for past events in your life that may be reoccurring and see if there’s any correlation. Tapping into a cycle that feels right for you can be majorly helpful for growth.
Astrology Helps You Reconcile the Differences Between Yourself and Others
Let’s say you’re a quiet, shy Pisces. You might not understand the loud, proud Leo who seems at home in the spotlight. Perhaps they come off as vain and overly dramatic to you. You most likely have a plethora of searing insight but can’t muster the gumption to share. If you want your ideas to be heard, you either need to take note from them and channel some of that energy or team up with someone who embodies that archetype. Both types of energies are needed to get the end result.
Maybe you’re a hardworking Taurus who is steady and practical. When you have an idea you mull it over and refine it before it leaves your lips. You can’t understand how your Gemini friend can talk about so many plans with all vigor and no real allegiance. They seem to buzz around so frantically it begins to frustrate you. If you step back a bit you’ll realize their flavor of energy is great for shaking things up, getting out of ruts, or bringing in feedback. Two people can get the same job done using different formulas.
There’s nothing wrong with you AND they’re not a terrible person either — you’re just different.
Go-with-the-flow, indecisive, flighty? Astrology might label that mutable. Practical, headstrong, stubborn, and traditional? That would be fixed. Someone described as fiery might have a literal excess of fire signs in their birth chart (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius).
It can be easy to write off someone whose personality is extremely divergent from yours. You may have even tried to change people in the past. Perhaps you’ve wanted to convince someone to come out of their shell or, alternately, to tone it down some.
If you find yourself being turned off by the same trait you discover in countless others, there could be a difficultly with that trait showing up in your chart somewhere. If you look at all interactions with other folks as lessons, then you can figure out what there is for you to learn in the discomfort.
Astrology can be misused in the same way that humans misuse anything else. If you stereotype someone by their sign (or anything else, really), you’re overlooking the nuances of human existence. The stories and archetypes of the zodiac are best used to deepen your understanding and compassion for others, not to divide and pigeonhole.
A bonus I’ve gained since deep-diving into astrology is that I know my way around the night’s sky a lot better than before. That’s right, I’ll say it again, it’s based in actual astronomy and isn’t just some witchy shit used to make memes. Though that can be fun sometimes, too.
