Your Spiritual Path
for Morgan
Each of us has the potential to develop along psychic, intuitive and spiritual lines into the person who best suits our natural gifts. There are essentially three possibilities for how that development may occur:
1. Along the lines dictated by our family, peers and social milieu: Most of us are taught a set of rules as children. Some of those rules prove to be very useful, and some lessons prove to be detrimental to our development, or at least not helpful.
2. Along the lines suggested by your own conscious mind: Each of us is born with the capacity to learn. The person inside us is the life and light of the mind.
3. The inevitable path is a combination of these two possibilities. No one can develop precisely the way someone else dictates. And no one can develop to suit individual desires with no connection to the outer world.
When individuals develop along the lines reflected by their astrological chart, the fullest expression of natural potential is possible. The birth chart places you at the center of your world, and shows your personal relationship to the Sun, Moon and planets. This is the astrological approach to spiritual understanding. It is not limited to one religious sect or emotional expression. The birth chart presents the possibilities that vibrate within your soul, and indicates which will be easier or more difficult to manage.
Your goal or mission is indicated by your natal chart, but you fully understand it only if you are open to the inner spiritual voice that is always present, and is truly your devoted life companion.
The best spiritual path is one that allows you to use your natural talents and skills. Sometimes your latent abilities will require training and practice to develop into spiritual tools. In this report we will consider a number of possibilities to help you get a sense of your talents, and how to develop and use them.
Your Creative Process
The Sun is the source of all physical life as we know it. As children develop, Sun sign characteristics are colored by family circumstances, cultural values, and other environmental influences. Yet we develop according to our own individual character IN SPITE of everything. The voice within us will not be denied. It cannot be eradicated and it never gives up. When we are on an appropriate path to our true spiritual destiny our inner voice is a gentle guide. When we stray into less productive territory, the voice becomes more forceful. When we attempt to stifle this inner voice of character, it waits patiently for the proper moment and speaks again. The Sun sign reveals your conscious attitude toward the external world. The following description of the Sun explores your natural tendencies of mental style and action.
With the Sun in Leo, you are primarily the Intuitive type. Intuitive types listen to their unconscious sources of information, eschewing normal perception. In fact, they are often largely unaware of what is around them in the material world. These people are the inventors, the artists, the forward thinkers because they can see the possibilities of an idea, often before the means of developing it are apparent. Therefore they pursue what they know the world is not yet prepared for.
Intuitives jump to conclusions, yes, but not necessarily without the intermediate steps. They either go through those steps at light speed by sizing up an underlying principle or they simply recognize an inevitable match of an idea's potential with their own desires. Intuitives fit into the educational system rather well, as many high school and college courses make use of the deductive skills intuitives share with the thinking type. You may respond well to the timed testing that is prevalent today. You can master the complexities of mathematics because you can grasp the results without having to ground your learning in some physical way.
Intuitives contribute through their inventiveness. You are generally willing to sacrifice the pleasure of the moment in the hope of greater future achievement. You are also restless and crave inspiration. Because you thrive in situations where getting to the answer is important, you are good at problem-solving and tasks that require ingenuity. Careers in the creative arts, religious inspiration and scientific discovery all suit the intuitive type. You can become an inspired leader or promoter. For you the game is more important than winning, the chase more interesting than the end result.
How You Express Your Will
The Sun indicates your will power and its direction. One of the reasons we can identify Sun signs in other people is that they are often willful in their actions. Especially in childhood they are determined, demanding and rebellious against anything that does not conform to their will. The Children of each Sun show us the power of will. The information about your Sun sign focuses on the potential expression (and the associated undercurrents).
I will be vain (when I could be magnanimous). I will be domineering (when I could provide dignified leadership). I will be dictatorial (when I could encourage cooperation among others). I will be stubborn (when determination will suffice). I will be snobbish (when I could invite others in, and gain devoted friends in the process).
Your Sun is in the 10th house. You may use your knees for purely physical activity, or you may climb the metaphorical corporate ladder. Energy focuses here, and you may find physical change in the knees accompanies spiritual shifts. You are consciously aware of the connection between practical realities and the imagination or intellect when it comes to effective action. You are able to find the best way to accomplish complex tasks. Effective spiritual action depends on the same kind of assessment. You seek a system that supports your daily work and personal activities, while at the same time providing a container for your spirit and its progress.
Aspects of the Sun
You devote yourself to each of life's experiences. If you can't do something wholeheartedly, then you may decide not to do it at all. You make spiritual progress through your own efforts, and may reach extraordinary heights. You find great joy in life, but are also aware of the depth of sadness and other feelings. As you take the spiritual path, you begin to see these less as opposites and more as part of a continuum of feeling. When you can bring higher values to bear in both joy and sadness, you achieve a synthesis of possibilities.
Spiritual character for you is involved in the playing out of rituals in daily activities. You have an intuitive bias toward respectful behavior, and you listen to this inner voice for guidance in difficult moments. Your personal power can make you arrogant. If you believe you can use force to control others, then you turn away from higher spiritual values. Instead, develop awareness of power as a currency that flows between you and other people. Sharing it is essential in the pursuit of self-realization. Associations with males can provoke your awareness of spiritual development, or lack of it. But it is not your task to point out their shortcomings. Rather, you can encourage them on their path by encouraging yourself on yours. You gain recognition through others, and self-confidence through spiritual endeavors as well as public events.
Core Beliefs
Much of the pain and limitation we experience is the result of being taught so-called "truths" that are incompatible with our core beliefs. Family and society train us, and sometimes little is done to nurture our individual realities. It is up to you to identify and nurture the values that are meaningful to you. When the filtering process is undertaken, you uncover a "truth" that is unique to you.
The Moon
The Moon reflects the soul. It governs fluids in your body and imagination in your mind. It generally represents a less conscious part of your being, and reflects the quality and flexibility of your memory. If the Sun indicates the most likely course of your spiritual path, the Moon indicates some of the qualities of the path itself.
With the Moon in Sagittarius, your secondary mental style is primarily the Intuitive type. Your internal intuitive style is very different from what you show to the world. People may feel the fire of your passion and not know what is behind it. They see you are "fired up" and wonder what is going on. Sharing the fire can be difficult, especially in the early stage where you feel it but don't know the direction it will take.
You often know what will happen, and probably have déjà vu experiences frequently. If you focus on these experiences, you will find that you have them more often than you thought, and you begin to lean how to interpret intuitive or psychic signals more clearly. As you pay more attention, you find that what were once perceived to be anxiety attacks now are signals from your unconscious about present or future events. It is often helpful to share your insights, even in the early stage when you don't have the full picture. By doing this you gain intuitive skill.
Your core beliefs were good for your family and society of origin, and therefore they may be good for you too. However, you consider change when those beliefs conflict with perceived reality.
Aspects of the Moon
The spirit within you expresses itself in the world almost without effort. Others can see the values you hold most important in your actions, hear them in your words, and therefore come to respect your opinions. Emotional and sexual intensity can separate you from spirit or bring you closer, depending on your awareness of the richness of the interactions you experience. The creative dynamics of two people merging is a profound source of spiritual awareness if you get past the physical tension and emotional conflict. This deepening of experience takes time. Strong emotional tension marks the beginnings and ending you face.
Your spiritual adventures incorporate excitability and a tendency to rely upon instinct. You are willing to make sacrifices in order to progress on the path. You can feel change coming long before it arrives. Occasionally you misjudge the nature of that change, but as you develop your psychic senses, you become a better judge of events. You live on the edge and expose yourself to negative influences if you aren't careful to make objective evaluations of others.
The Fourth House
The sign on the Fourth House cusp indicates the filter through which you view your core beliefs. It is the wellspring of all the best, most creative and most powerful ideas you will have throughout your lifetime. It indicates the refrain that the inner voice sings to you when you are sad or filled with joy, when you are pessimistic or optimistic, when you are afraid or when you are experiencing the power of love in your life.
You have Capricorn on the Fourth House cusp. Your home is your castle and it is also the place where you guard your deepest beliefs. One of these is your sense of the karmic (or dharmic) path you are on. For you, life is about effective action. If a closely held family belief has practical applications in your life, you will retain the belief despite its inconsistencies or contradiction with other values. This sometimes causes you to appear to be far more rigid than you actually are. It also can lead you to act in less than spiritually evolved ways.
You may find a teacher who is able to give you organized instruction to supplement your early childhood education and family values. Such a teacher can guide you through the process of evaluating and discarding values that no longer suit your spiritual path. Though even here you must remember that you are the source of your own best instruction where spirit is concerned.
In childhood you tend to respond to the animal and desire nature of your being, basing your beliefs on material matters. Throughout your life you grow into beliefs that address the nature of form and spirit. In the process you re-evaluate your beliefs and either discard or reshape them to fit with your higher aspirations. Thus it is out of the earlier attention to desire and matter that your spirit can arise and evolve.
The Inner Voice
Planets in the Fourth House reflect the inner voice that accompanies you throughout your life. They indicate the kind of people and experiences that most directly connect you to your core beliefs.
Planets in the Fourth House
Jupiter in 4th House:
The deepest, richest source of transcendent values lies within your family and home experience. You may find this difficult to understand at first, particularly if your childhood family situation was not totally positive. However, beneath any negativity there resides a foundation of beliefs that provide a starting point for your spiritual search. Hereditary values are a powerful ground on which to build personal beliefs. The key is to identify and retain what suits your quest, and set aside what does not work. You are deeply influenced by philosophy. You study the past and discuss it with family members in order to clarify your own values.
Fourth House Aspects
You find great joy in life, but are also aware of the depth of sadness and other feelings. As you take the spiritual path, you begin to see these less as opposites and more as part of a continuum of feeling. When you can bring higher values to bear in both joy and sadness, you achieve a synthesis of possibilities. You can achieve self-realization by developing your intuitive senses completely. You tend to "get the point" suddenly, after careful digestion of the facts. You are fortunate throughout your life to have discovered your inner spiritual voice. Share it with others.
Communication and Mental Development
Most of us were taught a set of "truths" in childhood and we were expected to accept them. To supplement what you have been taught by your parents, teachers, and the world at large, you need to develop a spiritual learning style that works for you. If you then decide to teach others, you must develop communication skills that let you share these experiences clearly and meaningfully with your students.
Training Your Conscious Mind
Three factors contribute to your ability to train your conscious mind for spiritual development:
* the natural direction of your thinking
* training to take advantage of this direction
* training your nervous system, and learning to respond to it
Element of Mercury
The angel Raphael is associated with healing in the Bible. The capacity for both companionship and healing forms the essence of Mercury's expression.
With Mercury in Leo, your communication style is primarily the Intuitive type. Spiritual healing and well being develop through the conflict between the present and the future. Because healing energy is directed through intellect, you benefit from mental training that focuses on listening to intuition and feelings first, and then seeks ways to confirm that information through logical means. Healing on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels occurs when conflict is accepted and examined, and then resolved.
Training the conscious mind involves reasoning on the conscious level. Spiritual Education teaches how to engage your intuitive function. Intuition can be trained. Mercury reflects a specific way for you to learn about intuition. See the section on Uranus for more information on your intuitive ability.
You have a natural ability to see into the future. What is not always so easy is applying this insight to everyday life. As you apply your awareness of the future, you will develop self-confidence. Your speculations may seem reckless to others. Leadership involves the capacity to build enthusiasm for goals that remain unseen.
Your Mercury is in the 11th House. You see the value of change, even reform in your spiritual practices, yet you also have the capacity for steady thinking and sound judgment. You grasp the essentials of contemplative practice quickly, and then must settle into a consistent daily practice, if only for a few minutes each day.
Mercury Aspects
The spirit within you expresses itself in the world almost without effort. Others can see the values you hold most important in your actions, hear them in your words, and therefore come to respect your opinions. Spirit expresses through you in the form of material creation. Whether you use words, music or art, or simply assist others to discover their highest expression, you are mediating between spirit and the material world each day.
You seek people with whom you can engage in serious spiritual work. Your capacity to concentrate on ideas can develop into deep philosophical understanding. You may become a teacher for others, as you recognize the effort required and can inspire it in your students. Your psychic senses are tuned so that you can talk about them clearly. You develop the capacity to tell other people the oddest impressions without causing discomfort.
Self Esteem and the Development of Spiritual Partnerships
The power of mind is unlimited, except by our own thinking. As you proceed along the spiritual path, self-esteem grows. Relationship with another person is a powerful force for the development of self-esteem and for spiritual growth.
Venus has been called the alter ego of the Earth. Very close to the same size as the earth, Venus has an atmosphere inhospitable to human life. The inner reaches of the unconscious mind were long thought to be inhospitable as well. Modern psychology has delved into the mechanism of mind, and religious mystics have long studied the rocky terrain to be found within each of us. The consensus is that to evolve spiritually, we must first look at ourselves. One way to do this is through relationship with others.
Romantic, business and other relationships all offer us the opportunity to project our thoughts onto other people. The evolutionary nature of a relationship allows us to explore our desires. Then we can achieve spiritual connections that transcend sexual expression. Right relationships between people provides inner awareness that helps us to mediate between personality and soul, between physical life and higher consciousness. Only through fusion of these apparently separate facets of your being can you approach true knowledge.
The Planet Venus provides indications about your best approach to spiritual partnerships. With Venus in Gemini, your best approach to healthy partnering is through the Thinking function. Your intellect is fed through close relationships with other people. These may be romantic connections, or you may connect to people you find attractive for some other reason. Ultimately your spiritual life is enhanced when you are able to communicate what you have learned to others.
Charming and courteous, you make friends easily, and may seem to promise more than you deliver in long-term relationships. Your spiritual process is best served by comparable effort in all your relationships, as conflict is not productive. You take a cooperative attitude, and follow through on whatever you promise to do.
Your Venus is in the 9th House. You anchor your higher values in concrete facts. Your life includes many significant events in the social sphere where you are able to gather information concerning whatever is truly important to you. You may have learned certain manners from your family and teachers, but it is through interaction with others that you learn how to be both a considerate companion and a responsible individual.
At first you may be indulgent, doing whatever the "crowd" suggests, or flirtatious regardless of the risk involved. You may vacillate, letting others lead you into activities that are not in your own best interests. As you move through your life, you attend to your own values early in any relationship. There is less friction in your interaction with others, and you find that others appreciate your ability to define and adhere to your principles. Knowledge comes from many sources, and you must study closely to gain the value from the experience of others. You may travel the world to gather information, or you may stay closer to home and read about far-reaching ideas.
Venus Aspects
Emotional and sexual intensity can separate you from spirit or bring you closer, depending on your awareness of the richness of the interactions you experience. The creative dynamics of two people merging is a profound source of spiritual awareness if you get past the physical tension and emotional conflict. This deepening of experience takes time. Spirit expresses through you in the form of material creation.
Whether you use words, music or art, or simply assist others to discover their highest expression, you are mediating between spirit and the material world each day. Sexual relationships tend to arouse your idealistic nature and may have little foundation for a long-term relationship. Once past the initial stage of love however, your imagination fuels the flame of intense spirituality and you are capable of ecstatic insights. Mystical practices can enhance your sex life. Your powerful artistic gifts can provide the media for your spiritual expression. Sometimes you are driven by physical compulsion to produce tangible works.
Doubt, Resistance, and the Development of Psychic Ability
The spiritual path has a number of potential pitfalls. Some of the most treacherous of these lie within our own minds. Our innermost thoughts become a prison, trapping us within walls of our own making. These may be the karmic result of the past, or they may be the result of recent actions. There are several ways we cause our own difficulties:
1) Secrets - Privacy and secrets are part of the picture. Children love the feeling of independence and power that comes with a secret. Problems only arise when the secrets we keep are detrimental to ourselves or to others.
2) Doubts - When a situation causes you to doubt, it is largely because it is incongruent with what you have learned in the past. You want something new, but your unconscious is in turmoil. You feel naughty, anxious, reluctant, or undeserving. Because of what you have learned from people you trust or from what you have read, you doubt your own decision-making ability.
3) Resistance - Resistance is not all bad. If change were too easy, we would have no stability. We could be talked into all sorts of things. What we need is a way to identify resistance for what it is, and then find ways to work with it.
Where your spiritual path is concerned, Neptune reveals how you handle secrets, how doubt arises for you, and also how to resolve resistance. One strategy involves your psychic ability.
Developing Your Psychic Ability
We use our psychic senses to understand the world of the present. You can train yourself to be more aware of the nuances of psychic awareness, and Neptune indicates how you can develop this ability. You will then connect with the earth and other people in new ways, and also confirm the significance of your spiritual values.
With Neptune in Capricorn, your private, psychic style is primarily the Sensation type. You have a psychic connection to your solid material surroundings. You "see" how to manipulate the environment to suit your needs, and you may feel or see ley lines in the earth. Dowsing for water or other purposes can be developed. You can identify sticks, dowsing rods, or other implements that "feel" right in your hands, and perhaps find someone who is adept to teach you.
You can enhance your ability significantly by using the principles of Feng Shui and magic in the arrangement of your living and working environments. Most of us benefit from proper arrangement of our surroundings. You can use your practical intelligence to both beautify your space and energetically align yourself and your possessions.
You may also spend time researching and exploring religious questions as part of your spiritual quest. Not one for surface examination, if you do take on a religious or spiritual study, you will study the profound depths of the subject before you are through.
Neptune is in the 3rd House. Your very impressionability makes you a great story teller. In the process of reading everything you can get your hands on, you will discover avenues for your spiritual development that are quite different from traditional family values.
Neptune Aspects
You can feel change coming long before it arrives. Occasionally you misjudge the nature of that change, but as you develop your psychic senses, you become a better judge of events. You live on the edge and expose yourself to negative influences if you aren't careful to make objective evaluations of others. Your psychic senses are tuned so that you can talk about them clearly.
You develop the capacity to tell other people the oddest impressions without causing discomfort. Sexual relationships tend to arouse your idealistic nature and may have little foundation for a long-term relationship. Once past the initial stage of love however, your imagination fuels the flame of intense spirituality and you are capable of ecstatic insights. Mystical practices can enhance your sex life. You are sensitive to the urgings of your inner voice, and you may even hear the voice within other people. You will experience visions and other forms of psychic awareness.
The Twelfth House
The sign on the Twelfth House indicates how you color issues of doubt and resistance. It also reflects your most direct approach to your psychic insights.
You have Virgo on the Twelfth House cusp. Before you can engage in spiritual service to others, you must learn about your inner thoughts and desires. A contemplative practice that takes you out of the hustle and bustle, and gets you to sit still will encourage your inner voice to reveal itself.
Death and Transformation as Spiritual Processes
Pluto, Scorpio and the Eighth House in the birth chart deal with issues of death and transformation. On the spiritual path a shaman must undergo a death-like initiation in order to come into his or her shamanic powers. In our own lives we continually experience the death of old ways of being and the birth of new possibilities. Transformative events can teach lessons concerning your spiritual growth:
* They are signposts to indicate progress.
* They allow you to modify your behavior in positive ways.
* They remind you to be gentle and kind with yourself.
* They remind you to accept yourself as you are, and to move forward.
* They remind you to support and encourage the child within yourself, just as you would encourage another person.
The Eighth House in your chart defines the mechanisms for change and self-acceptance that are most appropriate for you. By understanding them you develop a sense of self and a set of behaviors that lead more directly to your goal. You discard behaviors that no longer serve you in your journey on the spiritual path.
Scorpio is the natural sign on the Eighth House, and the associated planet is Pluto. How appropriate that Pluto, mythological ruler of the underworld, should be the planetary ruler of the Eighth House of death and transformation.
Yet Pluto attracts the living, though it cannot hold on to them for long. So it is with life. We are attracted to one way of doing things, but we know that change is the only certainty in life. As we travel the spiritual path, we find that each ending is the source of a new beginning, and that we often benefit from even the most traumatic events. By descending into the world of darkness and pain, we borrow a bit of Pluto's power, so that on the next step along the path we are stronger and more courageous.
With Pluto in Scorpio, your approach to death and transformation is primarily through the Feeling function. You have the innate capacity to engage feelings appropriate to the nature of events. If you have been discouraged from expressing those feelings, you may attempt to bury them deep within yourself. This is not helpful in the long run because the feelings resurface later or eat away at you internally.
What works better is to find suitable ways to express your distress, fear, anger--even your joy. This involves having the conscious experience of feelings and evaluating them for yourself instead of suppressing them. While this is no easy task, it is possible for you to become a stable rock in the midst of a river of change. You have your feelings and continue to manage the tasks before you, and you may surprise yourself at how well you handle even severe traumas.
You may meet with tragedy in your life that can mold your spiritual purpose or leave you grief-stricken, or both. Strong subconscious urges struggle to find appropriate expression. You have the capacity for major success if you mobilize your will. Your spiritual life flourishes when you take the moral high ground.
Pluto Aspects
Your personal power can make you arrogant. If you believe you can use force to control others, then you turn away from higher spiritual values. Instead, develop awareness of power as a currency that flows between you and other people. Sharing it is essential in the pursuit of self-realization. Your powerful artistic gifts can provide the media for your spiritual expression. Sometimes you are driven by physical compulsion to produce tangible works.
You perceive the cruel edge in people, and understand its source. As you deal with your own ruthlessness, you learn how to respond to it in others without risking your physical well-being. Self-confidence develops out of self-control in your interaction with others. You are sensitive to the urgings of your inner voice, and you may even hear the voice within other people. You will experience visions and other forms of psychic awareness.
The Eighth House
The sign on the Eighth House cusp indicates the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual approach you take when dealing with birth, death and transformation.
You have Taurus on the Eighth House cusp. If you stubbornly resist change in your life, you will constantly find yourself against the wall with nowhere to go. More than for most people, transformation is of the essence of your life, because you have the capacity to be up against the wall, hugging it for dear life, before you discover the doorway right in front of you into the next phase of your life. You simply need to release the latch and walk through.
Once you get past your stubborn attachment to having the path be exactly as you have planned it, you find that your intelligence leads you to express love for other beings and for yourself. When this happens, you act on the soul level and you no longer need to hold on to an idea, a material possession, or an emotion. Then each transition becomes an opportunity instead of an obstacle.
The Development of Intuition
Intuition is an ability beyond logical thinking. Through it you can consider future outcomes. In the Buddhist tradition, intuition is a mental ability, equal to intellect that can provide direct insight. In mathematics intuition is the capacity to "guess" the answer to a problem, skipping the regular logical processes.
Intuition is more than your inner voice. Intuition is one of the methods by which you understand the world. It is a skill you can develop and use consciously. Intuition often surfaces during meditation. When the mind is quiet, then intuition can be heard. Once trained, you can access intuition by stopping your normal waking process and entering the calm that you have cultivated.
The planet associated with intuition is Uranus. With Uranus in Sagittarius, your intuition works best through the Intuitive function. Much of your inspiration for your work comes from intuitive insight into future applications and results of your efforts. As your confidence in this ability to forecast trends, you gain the trust of the people around you. You focus your connection to the spiritual realm through attention to potential future results of today's actions. You are inspired to be your best when you can foresee a positive outcome.
Your Uranus is in the 3rd House. Your intuition arises through contact with siblings and peer group. At first it seems that communication occurs through sounds or visual signals. Later it is difficult or impossible for outsiders to detect any communication, but you understand each other even when separated by great distance.
Uranus Aspects
Strong emotional tension marks the beginnings and ending you face. Your spiritual adventures incorporate excitability and a tendency to rely upon instinct. You are willing to make sacrifices in order to progress on the path. Spiritual character for you is involved in the playing out of rituals in daily activities. You have an intuitive bias toward respectful behavior, and you listen to this inner voice for guidance in difficult moments. You can achieve self-realization by developing your intuitive senses completely. You tend to "get the point" suddenly, after careful digestion of the facts. You are quick to respond, and intuition helps you find the right answers. You may upset others with your enthusiasm.
The Midheaven: Self-Awareness and the Use of Intuition
How can you use your self-awareness to access intuition, a presumably involuntary, less conscious capacity? To take the direct, conscious path is challenging at best. This method only works if you can consciously enter unconscious territory, and by definition, that territory is unconscious because you cannot access it directly. You can rarely dive in intentionally.
You can wait for intuition to arise naturally without doing anything. Or you can practice meditation. It is fairly easy to learn and requires no particular physical or mental skills, except the ability to focus the mind. In addition, you have specific avenues, or points of focus, to aid you in the practice. The sign on the Midheaven indicates an area of the subconscious that you can access through meditation, thereby identifying spiritual keys to your development. By going within, you find the higher values most suited to your own path.
With the Midheaven in Cancer, your self-awareness and your path to self-realization are primarily through the Feeling function.
Beneath the subconscious desire to be the authority figure in your own life, you find you seek intelligent activity. Not one to be satisfied with methods you learn from others, you seek to formulate your own procedures, based on factual knowledge, personal experience, and instruction or training from established sources. In the process of developing better processes, you may appear dictatorial, limiting the activities of others or restricting them to what you approve. True intelligent activity will come to allow the creative problem solving of others to play a part, with you acting more as a guidance system.
Your understanding of how to direct activity effectively helps to get you past any rigid controlling behaviors. Each experience is assimilated into your matrix of resources, expanding your potential to be more effective in the future. You learn to engage in more effective action and thus become a valuable asset within your family, work and social spheres, as you can be depended onto find more satisfactory solutions for personal and interpersonal problems.
Karma and Dharma
Perhaps no single principle of Asian religions has fascinated us more than karma and its link to reincarnation. Karma refers to the cause and effect relationship between what we do and the results we get. Our actions bring reactions, constructive and not so constructive. However, everyday feedback often comes from individuals who are no more clear about their spiritual values than we are. So, what should you take seriously?
How does karma work in your life? Will it be played out in your next incarnation, or will you experience it in the here-and-now?
Certainly you do not have to believe in karma or reincarnation to make progress along your spiritual path. However, if you do astrology can offer insight into what factors in the past may be influencing you today. The following are suggestions concerning past influences. Think of them as relating to family and childhood experience, or you can relate them to your past lives, or both.
With Saturn in Scorpio, you experience karma and dharma primarily through the Feeling function. Intelligent activity, for you, is inspired by the feeling component of your mind. You can make a plan using any of the mental strategies, but you evaluate and judge its efficacy through the feeling function.
In looking back on your own past, into past lives, or even ancient human history, you judge people's actions by the results they achieved, and you also consider whether those results were worth the effort. Even if the outcome was what people wanted and needed, you evaluate the effectiveness of the action. You are able to learn from the past and to exercise good judgment in almost everything you do. You may tend toward caution in your planning, and you gather information at every step of the process.
Because of sensitive positioning, you are able to make adjustments to suit the needs of the moment. You like to have the time to project your plan into the future to think through the possible outcomes. When you feel rushed into implementing a plan, you may be reluctant if you cannot see a positive outcome. For this reason, it may be difficult to have faith in someone else's plan.
Your intense focus on the metaphysical realm can distract you from the demands of physical relationships. Sexual energy can be inhibited unless you can see the path to ecstasy includes all levels of consciousness. You see the spiritual value in all life, and understand birth and death as necessary transitions.
Your Saturn is in the 2nd House. Your most significant karmic lesson involves self-esteem and self worth. Resolve responsibilities and pain from the past. Then you become a vehicle for conscious intelligent action - you recognize the karma your actions may create.
Saturn Aspects
You seek people with whom you can engage in serious spiritual work. Your capacity to concentrate on ideas can develop into deep philosophical understanding. You may become a teacher for others, as you recognize the effort required and can inspire it in your students. Associations with individuals much older than yourself are the stuff of your spiritual education. Examine your inhibitions (you have some), and seek to break out of your natural desire to isolate yourself.
Transcendent Values
Behind what you know about yourself - behind all other considerations of spirituality, lie the transcendent values that are most important to you. These are the values you have worked to discover from among all the rules you have been taught. They are the reason you have read books, studied with teachers, privately pondered and examined the events of your life. They are the fundamental principles that you believe will help you find fulfillment as a human being. As such they are the source of energy behind your self-awareness, the motivation of your spiritual search, and the principles that you apply to your dharma, or life path.
With Jupiter in Aquarius, your approach to and understanding of transcendant values is primarily through the Thinking function. Regardless of your typical mental style, indicated by the element occupied by the Sun, you tend to process best through thinking, and through the skillful use of words. You aspire to more perfect expression, both within yourself and in the social realm.
Mental and spiritual training benefit you by providing rigorous reasoning skills and by opening your heart to the intuitive information that flows around you. Even when you have achieved fusion of heart and mind, you find that your mental process and expression focus on intellect and the thinking process. You may come to trust your intuition deeply, but you gain this level of confidence through testing your intuitive knowledge logically and rationally. You understand that the cycle of cause and effect begins on the mental plane, descends through the emotional realm, and manifests in the physical world.
You may confuse social justice with spiritual values. They are not the same. Contemplative practice helps you to understand your inner nature, to distinguish it from your awareness of other people, and to direct your spiritual path according to your personal needs and aspirations.
Aspects of Jupiter
You find great joy in life, but are also aware of the depth of sadness and other feelings. As you take the spiritual path, you begin to see these less as opposites and more as part of a continuum of feeling. When you can bring higher values to bear in both joy and sadness, you achieve a synthesis of possibilities. You can achieve self-realization by developing your intuitive senses completely. You tend to "get the point" suddenly, after careful digestion of the facts. Generally you find your associations with others to be advantageous. As your spiritual awareness grows, this becomes a more consistent element of your life, until you are able to avoid or manage all contacts by evoking tact and harmony, even in one who would be your opponent. You are fortunate throughout your life to have discovered your inner spiritual voice. Share it with others.
The Ninth House
You have Gemini on the Ninth House cusp. The first value you have to understand is perceived duality in the physical world. Because all perceptions are a function of this perception, you will need to sharpen your powers of observation, and learn to perceive things without judgment. A second value lies in the understanding of change. You have the capacity to understand the processes of change on every level. As you gain this understanding you come to see the consistency of change within the whole of being.
The third value is abstract mental power. You learn the ability to exert your intelligence, free of attachment to the material world, gaining "concrete" knowledge on the spiritual plane. Then you can understand the true causes behind all manifestations.
Planets in the Ninth House
Venus in 9th House:
You anchor your higher values in concrete facts. Your life includes many significant events in the social sphere where you are able to gather information concerning whatever is truly important to you. You may have learned certain manners from your family and teachers, but it is through interaction with others that you learn how to be both a considerate companion and a responsible individual.
At first you may be indulgent, doing whatever the "crowd" suggests, or flirtatious regardless of the risk involved. You may vacillate, letting others lead you into activities that are not in your own best interests. As you move through your life, you attend to your own values early in any relationship. There is less friction in your interaction with others, and you find that others appreciate your ability to define and adhere to your principles. Knowledge comes from many sources, and you must study closely to gain the value from the experience of others. You may travel the world to gather information, or you may stay closer to home and read about far-reaching ideas.
Ninth House Aspects
Emotional and sexual intensity can separate you from spirit or bring you closer, depending on your awareness of the richness of the interactions you experience. The creative dynamics of two people merging is a profound source of spiritual awareness if you get past the physical tension and emotional conflict.
This deepening of experience takes time. Spirit expresses through you in the form of material creation. Whether you use words, music or art, or simply assist others to discover their highest expression, you are mediating between spirit and the material world each day. Sexual relationships tend to arouse your idealistic nature and may have little foundation for a long-term relationship. Once past the initial stage of love however, your imagination fuels the flame of intense spirituality and you are capable of ecstatic insights. Mystical practices can enhance your sex life. Your powerful artistic gifts can provide the media for your spiritual expression. Sometimes you are driven by physical compulsion to produce tangible works.
Mars: Your Spiritual Persona
Mars indicates an area of life that is vitally important to your spiritual growth. Whatever path you choose, this factor will come up again and again. Others will see how it affects you, but they are unlikely to understand the depth of its significance. You yourself may not understand the power of this influence on your life.
The Element of Mars
Mars is naturally associated with Aries, a fire sign. Traditionally Mars was also associated with Scorpio, a water sign. Thus the expression of Mars shares the nature of these two elements to some extent. The movement between water and fire involves the capacity for discriminating awareness. Mars governs the five senses-touch, taste, sight, hearing and smell. The position of Mars directly reflects your capacity to relate to the world through your senses.
With Mars in Leo, your spiritual persona is expressed most fluently through the Intuitive function. You naturally consider the future while taking action in the present. You relate to the physical world via intuition, and you do the same in spiritual considerations. When you encounter a dilemma or paradox in your life, you tend to project the problem into the future to hypothesize how it will be resolved, and then you take action in the present to move toward that outcome. Your actions, while focused on the future, are always a reflection of a purification process that is usually associated with water.
The sign placement of Mars is significant to developing your spiritual persona. The sign colors the message you receive concerning the direction your spiritual path will take. Here are three personality traits associated with Mars in your chart: Fairness, Sacrifice, Humility. If you consider each trait and consciously evoke it in your daily activities, you will find that the path becomes more fulfilling, more insightful, and easier. By actively devoting energy to the development of the traits of your Mars, you spontaneously develop several traits associated with other signs.
House Placement of Mars
Your Mars is in the 10th House. The focus of your spiritual persona is on issues of the right livelihood. You will not be satisfied with any career that leads you away from the spiritual path. At the same time you devote your energy and time to becoming successful in your career. In the long run you seek to convert pride in your accomplishments into the achievement of spiritual goals for their own sake. You can become an exemplar of all that is best in your chosen career field.
Mars Aspects
You devote yourself to each of life's experiences. If you can't do something wholeheartedly, then you may decide not to do it at all. You make spiritual progress through your own efforts, and may reach extraordinary heights. You perceive the cruel edge in people, and understand its source. As you deal with your own ruthlessness, you learn how to respond to it in others without risking your physical well-being. Self-confidence develops out of self-control in your interaction with others.
The Ascendant: Expressing Spirit in the World
The Ascendant provides a personal anchor for understanding spiritual potential and process in the birth chart. It shows how you express yourself in the world. This is because the rising sign represents choice - you choose what you want to show to the world. Ultimately, however, you come back to the Sun sign on the spiritual level.
Each person learns about the Sun sign's higher spiritual values and cultivates those values by developing the positive traits of the Ascendant. Each sign as it rises brings to light different personality traits, different physical appearance, and a different sense of spiritual direction. The rising sign offers a container for your experimentation with constructive, creative personal choices about how to act in the world. Later you can take this practice back to the Sun sign and master its lessons.
Remember that the Midheaven and Ascendant depend on an accurate birth time. If you have no idea of your birth time, the material included here may help you to focus on a spiritual persona for yourself.
Your Rising Sign (Ascendant)
In some ways your persona is the balance of an object at rest. Metaphysically you appreciate the space between activities, so your persona reflects that kind of calm. This contemplative expression indicates that you can achieve a balance between your physical life and your soul life. As you learn to work with duality in a conscious way, your persona becomes calmer and you are able to effect change in the world without stirring up the energy more than necessary.
The tendency to balance and calm is part of what makes you a welcome guest. You can be counted on to enrich conversation both by listening actively and participating with clear questions, ideas, and an occasional opinion. You cultivate harmony among the people around you, and thus make a strong team member who can be counted on to keep the goal in mind in the midst of discussion.
As your spiritual path unfolds, you find that your sexual and other material desires change. You are still a physical beings with needs and desires, but your motivations take on the quality of spiritual aspiration. Instead of engaging in sex for the sake of sex, you seek partners who share a spiritual affinity that allows you both to experience ecstasy through your relationship. Sometimes this even means engaging in activities that transcend the physical realm without using physical contact as the avenue of approach.
Sometimes we see an older couple hanging out together. They don't seem to talk very much, but we can see that they are attuned to each other. They investigate whatever catches the eye, pointing out things to each other. They are calm, not rushing their activity but following its natural pace. The outer appearance reflects an inner spiritual attunement that is the hallmark of the Libra Ascendant.
Libra Ascendants are vulnerable to any excess that throws the physical body out of harmony. This can result in a variety of ailments involving the kidneys, bladder and sexual organs. You can enjoy life best by exercising s degree of moderation. In this way you demonstrate respect for yourself and your partner on the physical and spiritual level.
Ascendant Aspects
You gain recognition through others, and self-confidence through spiritual endeavors as well as public events. You are fortunate throughout your life to have discovered your inner spiritual voice. Share it with others. You are quick to respond, and intuition helps you find the right answers. You may upset others with your enthusiasm.
Conclusion
This interpretation of your life path has provided a systematic look at astrological factors that together add up to a spiritually oriented map. As you come to understand your unique map, you can move forward through life joyously and courageously, knowing that the path is appropriate to your personal beliefs, desires and needs.
