Astrological Healing
How can astrology help me on my healing journey?
Traumatic experiences of various kinds often narrow our vision. They keep us trapped in the present, focused on moment-to-moment survival. Time stops. Amidst the daily battle for survival, we can lose the benefit of a broader perspective to situate our experiences.
We can also lose touch with ourselves: who we are, where we’ve been, where we might go in the future, what we are here to do. Astrology returns to us that broader perspective by positioning our lives and our stories within the expansive framework of the heavens: our place in the universe.
We gain clearer insights into how our traumatic wounds have shaped us, how they participate in much larger karmic cycles—and most importantly, how we can exercise a greater sense of agency within those cycles to alter them, reroute them, and harness them to fulfill our unique purpose in this life. After the abyssal fog of trauma, there is nothing more empowering than the self-discovery, spiritual clarity, and profound psychological-philosophical insights that astrology offers.
What can I learn from my birth chart?
Your birth chart shows a picture of the sky in the moment you were born. This celestial picture also creates a map, a schema of your natal karma and traces the different ways in which that karma will be expressed over the course of your lifetime.
Understanding your birth chart can help you make sense of your experiences, track larger cycles around topics such as love/marriage, work/career, daily routines, spirituality and higher learning, hidden/ catastrophic wisdom, your resources, the resources you share with others, home/family/foundations, your creative and erotic pursuits, and what forms of community/ social structures you might find most nurturing.
These main topics in the life correspond to the 12 houses, each of which will have a different energy, frequency, flavor, or tone based on the zodiac sign that house falls in. The zodiac signs, which may be familiar to some of you from horoscopic astrology, include: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces.
The next layer of your chart comes from the placement of planets in houses and signs: for example, you might have Mars in Libra in the 12th house, or Pluto in Taurus in the 7th house. These placements can help us get an even more precise understanding of how different topics in your life will play out: your strengths, the challenges you will face, and the lessons you continue to learn.
We get even deeper insight into strengths, challenges, and karmic lessons by exploring how the planets in your chart interact with one another through different “aspects” — or, relationships between the planets that provide additional information about where you will find support, where you might find yourself less resourced, and central tensions/ conflicts that you will navigate throughout your life.
Finally, your birth chart can be viewed comparatively: in relation to the current movements and energies in the sky, to provide a forecast of what natal karma is being activated right now, or during important events from your past, and where that karma might re-emerge in the coming months and years.
As you can see, your birth chart is rife with essential information about your journey, and exploring it in detail can help you process past trauma, prepare for future challenges, and engage more thoughtfully in your present.
Where do I begin with my birth chart? This is all sounding very complex.
Astrology can be quite complex, and that’s why it can be helpful to get an astrological reading from a trained astrologer who can act as a tour guide, a counselor, a facilitator to help you get to know the terrain of your birth chart. To schedule a natal chart reading with me, visit the “Appointment Info & Bookings” page of my website.
However, if you’re not able to afford an astrological reading or you’d like to start somewhere on your own, you can boil it down to a few simple but incredibly descriptive features of the chart. And you can do this with virtually no background in astrology!
The three most important features of your birth chart are your Sun sign, your Rising sign, and your Moon sign.
In much of contemporary or pop astrology, you will see a massive focus on the Sun sign in weekly horoscopes published by various magazines and astrology outlets. The Sun sign corresponds to the date of your birth, and it shows the main plot/ story arc of your life.
The Rising sign gives an even more precise and personal expression of your becoming and how you experience it within yourself. It shows the zodiac sign that was on the horizon (in the first house) at the moment you were born, and it tracks a more intimate arc of how you experience the world, and how you relate to those experiences. For more accurate horoscopes, I highly recommend using your Rising sign rather than your Sun sign.
The Moon sign gives us a sense of the setting— environment, surroundings—in which the life is lived, including the relationship to your body.
To find your Sun, Rising, and Moon sign, you will need the time of your birth, the place of your birth, and the date. Then, you can visit any astrological website that generates charts, enter your birth data, and voila!— your chart will appear. For ease, clarity, and consistency, I recommend using the “whole sign house system”, where all of the 12 houses are evenly divided and correspond to the 12 signs of the zodiac. But ultimately it’s up to you: if you already have a background in astrology and prefer a different house system, feel free to stick with that one.
Once you’ve identified your Sun, Moon, and Rising sign, you can learn more about these three zodiac signs by using the resources on my website or many other wonderful astrological resources available online.
For those who seek to integrate astrological healing into their daily lives and spiritual practices, I highly recommend using the CHANI app, which creates your birth chart, identifies your three key signs, and can shows you the relationships between planets in your chart. Additionally, the app tracks how the current movements in the sky interact with your birth chart placements, which is a wonderful way to familiarize yourself with astrology—and how it relates to your life!— when you’re just starting out. Then you might begin to incorporate astrological insights into your daily life. From there, you can do more research about specific dynamics in the chart if you’re interested, and/or begin to formulate a set of questions that you might want to ask a trained astrologer should you decide to get a reading.
