"The awe is infinite. What is possible is everything. How long have we overlooked the internal majestic landscapes of pure freedom within us?"
― Ciela Wynter, The Inner Journey: Discover Your True Self
I remember little about the first astrologer I saw. It was many, many years ago. I had wanted to see him because all this star stuff was new to me, but fascinating. And while I did not discount nor dismiss it as not valuable, I didn't know much about it. I was excited by the prospects of being told all about myself and the mystery of how that was done intrigued. It was also because the astrologer was the owner of our local city metaphysical bookstore, a treasure trove of valuable new, old, rare and sought after jewels on astrology, mysticism, magic, metaphysics and more. It was so appealing to me because I was intrigued with the deep exploration of life beyond the physical. I spent many hours, and dollars combing through his little shop. Too, I later found out that one of the delightful beings I worked with at the local phone company, then, was his sister. It added a bit of old-fashioned charm to the whole enterprise.
I do remember asking him about my mission, my purpose. I thought I was supposed to become a teacher, like my mother (which I did). I remember him saying, "If you are a teacher, well, it won't be the traditional type. You're here for something more extraordinary." There was a whole lot of babble about 'Mars and Jupiter trining my Venus-Mars' or some such thing, and it kind of went in one ear, and out the other. Still, I wanted to know more. That first session piqued my already fertile curiosity.
I saw the next astrologer about 10 years later in the little Iowan city where I attended graduate school. She was famous in the local area there for being a very good astrologer, and also, mysterious. It took months to get an appointment with her. The one thing I remember her saying to me (I had come no further in my learning about the workings of astrology on my own), was that there was something in my chart which showed I was well ahead of my time, and if I hadn't shut myself down so much, I might have wrestled with mental instability. That's a poor recall, but I remember being startled by her pronouncement. According to her, I was ahead of my time almost like a time-traveler from the future, stuck in a place from the past during her journey. She suggested that I was a bit of a visionary, and that I was out of step with others, and that I knew things ahead of my contemporaries. I looked at her in awe. She saw my low self-confidence and intimated that because I suffered from low self-esteem, it might well have been a kind of "saving grace," in my teen years, and might somehow have kept me from standing out. That boggled.
"I don't believe in astrology; I'm a Sagittarius and we're skeptical."― Arthur C. Clarke
I wish I still had the little cassette tapes that those readings were recorded on. They both got lost in my many moves and travel journeys across my growing time. After that, I was no closer really to understanding just how to understand the workings of astrology. I had a mental block about it, that it was hard to grasp like geometry was for me in high school. It was too much to synthesize. All those aspects, configurations, interpretations, movements and meanings still overwhelmed.
"I listened to a feminist astrologer portend that in 2020 humanity would begin transitioning into a two-thousand year era of either matriarchy or chaos, communal peace and love or tribal fear and loathing-the choice was ours."― Lucile Scott, An American Covenant: A Story of Women, Mysticism, and the Making of Modern America
And...there are just some things that others are better at. I will always always admire artists, painters and people who can draw ... people who can create art that way. Theirs is a gift I appreciate, but have absolutely no ability to do. Even my stick figures are sad. There is a special way artists see the world before them. They can look at a blank paper and see a world that appears only within their mind's eye, and translate that to the material world. For me, too, astrologers are like that. And even though they apply certain rules, and have certain understanding of how astrology works, they are like artists to me. They are able to look at the map of the sky and understand what the stars are saying to them and through them. Of course, some are better than others. But still, to do a halfway decent job requires a certain kind of gift.
Since those first two astrologers, I have had a Vedic astrology reading and a Tibetan horoscope cast. I did not understand either of those, although I would like to. More shades of meaning and ways of seeing the world and life appeal to my Gemini rising. I remain convinced of the usefulness of astrology and frustrated at my inability to integrate everything in the way that isn't about piecemealing an interpretation together.
I have never given up my interest in grasping this most amazing of tools we have at hand to better understand ourselves, and am still much intrigued with understanding for myself how astrology works. But even after all these years, I am only slightly more knowledgeable. Oh, I understand the signs, planets, and houses. But looking at all those extra lines (aspects) and apply mathematical sounding descriptions makes me just shut down. Still. But I haven't given up.
Now as we move into clearly different and big times of cosmic change, I feel the imperative of grasping an understanding that allows me to hear what the universe is saying about the All of Everything, about why I came for just such a time, and what can help me to peel back the layers of knowledge of the grandness of life a little more. By lifting that big boulder of mystery (beyond just scientific application and understanding), and exploring messages that transcend or reflect only ordinarily lived material life, would bring me another kind of communication that would better enable me to understand just how much more awe-inspiring this world is. When I finally get my mind wrapped around it properly, it will reveal more secrets about who we really are as a universal family. My best analogy: it would be like the day you discover what that that strange, eccentric aunt everyone said was crazy and ignored, or pushed to the side when you were growing up was really saying all those years. And that unlike what your family said (who couldn't be bothered to really listen), she was speaking truth and magic that would have really made the world make sense and validate your own magical reality.
I know the world is bigger than what we've been told. All life is sentient. We just don't know how to communicate with it. As we allow for the possibility that there is more to the all that meets the eye, than we've been told and taught, the world becomes infinitely more interesting. With astrology, we might have 'predetermined' choices in some aspects of living, but our ability to choose is not. It's all so magnificent to me to know I am part of a greater whole of LIFE, and that pooh-poohing it doesn't make one smarter or scientific, it makes one blissfully ignorant. Like psychology and mathematics, astrology is another language that may help amplify the human understanding of this-here material life.
I don't care whether you believe, or you don't. I see that gaining a wider, greater understanding of everything that is out there, that exists, broadens, widens, and grows my world, my understanding of life, and helps make this life a little more comprehensible.
But that's just me.
God is everywhere and is everything. And It's talking all the time.
The stars are just one language.
© 2020. Egyirba M. High. [Althea Grace]. All Rights Reserved.
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