Elena asks: “How do you deal with your chart, Elsa? Do you accept it a fate? A problem to be worked out?
HI, Elena. I don’t deal my chart. I deal with my life and astrology helps. I never look at anything in my chart and think, oh that’s a problem. I don’t understand people who do.
It’s very common, someone will be going off on something in their chart, an aspect or a transit coming up and invariably they will be asking what it is going to do to them. What doom does this portend?
And I will tell you the truth even though it’s embarrassing. When I come across something like this John Prine’s song, “Dear Abby” plays in my head.
Prine sings (in Dear Abby’s voice):
“Bewildered, bewildered, You have no complaint
You are what your are and you ain’t what you ain’t
So listen up buster, and listen up good
Stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood…”
I think people take astrology and look for problems they’re not even having. I don’t operate like that. For me, it’s life first, astrology second.
There’s no way I going to spend time looking for the doom in my chart. Astrology should help solve problems, not create them.
How do you use astrology in everyday life?
I love this post!
I occasionally feel a bit spooked by an upcoming transit but for the most part my approach is similar to yours. Astrology sometimes helps me sort things out and understand people better. It is just a way of organizing things mentally for me.
Astrology helps me understand myself better and I especially like to look back on things that happened to me using the astrology lense, helping me understand things in a new light – in the present this is more difficult because I get caught up on what’s going on with me.
But I have to admit to feeling doomed sometimes – but that’s not the astrology effect, it’s just the way I feel about life in general (bad thoughts, I know!).
That song is very appropriate.
I prefer to look back with astrology rather than forward, Elsa I try to see how the pieces fit, with hindsight. Seeing that things do not always work out as per astro text books is quite comforting when an upcoming transit seems at all threatening.
Nothing is threatening really, except paranoia!
I use astrology as a personal growth tool to try to see myself as others do. While some people have trouble seeing Elsa, I have trouble seeing me. I never use astrology as a type of “weather forecast” that I adjust my life around.
I started getting into astrology after a painful breakup that caused more emotion in me than the relationship warranted. I wanted to understand why I overreacted, what was going on at the time etc, and the synchronicity of the predictions blew me away! it all happened the way Lutin, Barry and Elsa divined. Of course most astrologers say that these are energies that incite you, and not decide for you. Free will is the basis of society, sure, but so is our are natal chart are to a certain extent the basis of our character : “the cards we are dealt with” otherwise we all wouldn’t be here on this blog trying to understand ourselves and why “women always hate me,” or “i get into abusive relationships” or “fall in love with unavailable men.” Those are patterns-astrological, psychological, whatever. Patterns that we become aware of only after we make the same mistakes over and over again and the pain gets to big. So there is obviously something predetermined about our lives, with an added wiggle room and variation on the theme of course. The anxiousness I have concerning astrology is summed up from many of my personal conclusions as well as Elsa comments here. I find her to be very intuitive and insightful and asking the same of herself and the soldier. I remember her posts about the “marry him already” and her thinking things might not work out between them when she looks at their synastry chart. etc etc and various other sundries…
Thanks for the post. I am going to stop worrying about Saturn entering my 8th house PRONTO.
“it’s life first, astrology second.” Exactly. Chiron utterance.
I might be wrong in how I deal with my chart, but I’m only concern with astrological factors when I’m feeling some kind of strange, sometimes inquiring minds need to know! 🙂 I do pay attention to moon phases, retrogrades, but not to the point where they are my main focus… Were I to live by the doom and gloom listed in my chart, I would have buried my head in the sand many moons ago, and would be there until the second coming!
What my chart/ astrology has done most for me is to give me a much better understanding of self! And that’s a good thing!
I agree with all the posted comments. Astrology has definitely help me understand myself, my upbringing, my personal and professional relationships, karmic lessons, and life purpose. The chart is my tangible life framework. It’s very comforting to study it and use it as a tool to make significant decisions.
Same. People, living their real lives, first. Astrology offers insight, in the context of their life, as they understand it. Even while they ask me my interpretation, their understanding about the “why” of their undertakings, in their lives, takes precedence, always.