Astrology

There are a vast number of astrological sites on the internet, including many excellent introductions to the subject as well as specialist sites focusing on specific schools of thought and methodology (see Links below for some of them). I won't be adding to any of that on these pages (although click on the link for the briefest of brief introductions). This section of the site is an eclectic collection of essays dealing with specific astrological subjects as and when they find themselves being written, and assume a reasonable level of understanding in the subject. In some ways they echo the homeopathic provings in that they're mostly experiential explorations of the energies represented by various astrological archetypes. It goes without saying that these are personal and subjective interpretations, even if evidenced by reference to charts of various individuals or events.

I'm not a professional astrologer but have studied the subject informally for several years now and find it an extremely useful tool in homeopathic practice as well as more generally. Since there are as many different approaches to astrology and as many, if not more, ways of interpreting and using the data as there are ways of practicing homeopathy, here's a brief summary of the underlying assumptions and perspectives that inform my particular approach to the subject.

An astrological chart of a person's birth (or an event) represents a symbolic analogical snapshot of their energetic blueprint taken through the lens of the macrocosm at the same moment in time. It's a map of their principle "characterising dimensions", to borrow a term from homeopathy (the quis? quid? ubi? quibus auxiliis? cur? quomodo? quando? – which, what, where, what with, why, how, and when) which define and distinguish the unique qualities of each individual within the context of the whole. It's more of a thematic outline than "fate" set in tablets of stone, since there is always a huge amount of potential variability in how each individual reacts to any given situation and at what level the energies play out, from the mundane and/or physical to the philosophical and spiritual.

Mapping the positions of the planets and points at the moment of a person's birth in this way doesn't imply any kind of focused physical impact being exerted by those planets directly on the individual. In other words, the planets are not in any way "causative" of the individual's character, a rather absurd concept which has led many people to reject astrology out of hand. (That kind of object-oriented unidirectional linear logic is incompatible with astrology in any case, which lends itself more to a holistic analogical multi-dimensional apprehension of inter-related process. See the essay The Redness of Names for more on this.) Rather, the relative positions of the planets are reflective and representative of the precise state of the "hologram" (of which each of us is part) at the moment we emerge and define ourselves in our place within it. The same individual's energetic blueprint can be mapped in any number of different ways – all the diverse well-established astrological systems have validity – yet the territory remains the same.

I use the tropical geocentric method common to many western astrologers with a predominantly psychoanalytic interpretive slant, and make use of all 10 planets (as far as I'm concerned, Pluto and Eris deserve equal rank with the traditional planets), a selection of asteroids (Chiron, Juno, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas Athena), the Hamburg School Transneptunian Points (Cupido, Hades, Zeus, Kronos, Apollon, Admetos, Vulkanus, Poseidon), Dark Moon Lilith, the Sabian Symbols and the occasional asteroid.

Links

To other astrological material on this site:

Blog entries:
Bird flew
Erisian fields
Pluto no go
Finger of fate

Homeopathic provings:
Mt Roineabhal Summit Rock Essence

Online chart calculation, personal reports, articles, ephemeris:
Astrodienst

Chart data for famous people:
Astrodatabank

Introductions to astrology:
Café Astrology
Astrology Weekly

Specialist interest sites:
Asteroids – Martha Lang Wescott
Centaurs, Black Holes and Galactic Astrology – Philip Sedgwick
Ephemerides – Jonathan Dunn
Fixed Stars – Diana Rosenberg
Transneptunian meditations – Janis Page
Uranian Institute
Weather predictions – Richard Nolle

Commentaries on current energies:
Aquarius Papers
Mark Krueger
StarIQ

Smeddum.net - Astrological essays by homeopathic practitioner Wendy Howard