Why Astrology?
April 23, 2011
Why do people study astrology? What do people find appealing about the system of ascribing meaning to the positions of the sun, moon and planets at a particular moment?
I can’t speak for others, but I will tell you what I know.
When I was 13, I discovered a secret pastime. Every night after dinner, after the dishes were done, I would step onto the balcony of my parents’ bedroom and look at the stars. I studied the patterns the stars made, noted how some appeared closer than others, some twinkled more brightly than others. There was a beauty and perfection in the arrangement of the night sky that soothed me. Perhaps my obsession with the sky helped to distract attention away from the many imperfections of my gawky adolescent self.
Astrology in those days meant sun sign astrology, the stuff of drugstore magazine racks. It was primitive, and it didn’t fully explain a lot of the individual quirks I noticed in the people around me, but I found it fun and worthwhile to become well versed in sun sign astrology during my teen-aged years.
As I grew to young adulthood, I moved beyond the simplistic study of sun signs into the complexities of the natal chart. In those days, most astrologers calculated chart placements by hand, taking two figures from a published ephemeris and extrapolating them to come up with the exact degree and sign of each body. (Perhaps it was my poor math skills that led me to determine that a dear friend had her Moon in Gemini instead of in Cancer, where it really is.) My great joy in those days was hand-drawing horoscope charts, using colored pencils to pinpoint the planetary positions and aspects. I was not very good at reading charts, and I was quite sketchy at calculations, but darn it, those charts I produced back then sure were pretty.
Fast forward twenty years, one marriage and two children. My husband died of a massive heart attack in March of 2000. He left me with a small life insurance benefit, a large mortgage to pay, two children to finish raising, and more loneliness than I could cope with. After a few months of crazy grief, I felt the need for some positive change. I realized that it was time for me to make a new life for myself, to make the most of my new freedom, and to do some of the things I didn’t have time to do when I was married.
Enter my old friend astrology. The books I kept from twenty years ago were still there, dusty and crack-spined, but I didn’t mind their age. I threw myself into them, adding more and more books to my collection, until I felt confident enough to begin the practice of astrology again.
A wonderful thing had happened in the intervening years: computer-generated chart calculating software had come out. For people like me, the math-impaired, it was a gift from heaven. I started reading charts again in 2001.
Thinking about my story, I could honestly say that my interest in astrology was motivated in large part by emotional pain. The pain of an unwelcome adolescence. The pain of widowhood. The pain of not knowing the reasons why people have to suffer so much in traveling from infancy through old age and death.
The logic and beauty of a horoscope chart, the way it sums up the energies operating in a person’s life, helps to take some of that uncomprehending pain away. At least it does for me.
Why astrology? What does it mean to you? Only you can answer that question.
I can’t speak for others, but I will tell you what I know.
When I was 13, I discovered a secret pastime. Every night after dinner, after the dishes were done, I would step onto the balcony of my parents’ bedroom and look at the stars. I studied the patterns the stars made, noted how some appeared closer than others, some twinkled more brightly than others. There was a beauty and perfection in the arrangement of the night sky that soothed me. Perhaps my obsession with the sky helped to distract attention away from the many imperfections of my gawky adolescent self.
Astrology in those days meant sun sign astrology, the stuff of drugstore magazine racks. It was primitive, and it didn’t fully explain a lot of the individual quirks I noticed in the people around me, but I found it fun and worthwhile to become well versed in sun sign astrology during my teen-aged years.
As I grew to young adulthood, I moved beyond the simplistic study of sun signs into the complexities of the natal chart. In those days, most astrologers calculated chart placements by hand, taking two figures from a published ephemeris and extrapolating them to come up with the exact degree and sign of each body. (Perhaps it was my poor math skills that led me to determine that a dear friend had her Moon in Gemini instead of in Cancer, where it really is.) My great joy in those days was hand-drawing horoscope charts, using colored pencils to pinpoint the planetary positions and aspects. I was not very good at reading charts, and I was quite sketchy at calculations, but darn it, those charts I produced back then sure were pretty.
Fast forward twenty years, one marriage and two children. My husband died of a massive heart attack in March of 2000. He left me with a small life insurance benefit, a large mortgage to pay, two children to finish raising, and more loneliness than I could cope with. After a few months of crazy grief, I felt the need for some positive change. I realized that it was time for me to make a new life for myself, to make the most of my new freedom, and to do some of the things I didn’t have time to do when I was married.
Enter my old friend astrology. The books I kept from twenty years ago were still there, dusty and crack-spined, but I didn’t mind their age. I threw myself into them, adding more and more books to my collection, until I felt confident enough to begin the practice of astrology again.
A wonderful thing had happened in the intervening years: computer-generated chart calculating software had come out. For people like me, the math-impaired, it was a gift from heaven. I started reading charts again in 2001.
Thinking about my story, I could honestly say that my interest in astrology was motivated in large part by emotional pain. The pain of an unwelcome adolescence. The pain of widowhood. The pain of not knowing the reasons why people have to suffer so much in traveling from infancy through old age and death.
The logic and beauty of a horoscope chart, the way it sums up the energies operating in a person’s life, helps to take some of that uncomprehending pain away. At least it does for me.
Why astrology? What does it mean to you? Only you can answer that question.