by Veronica Smith
In all my years of talking to people about Astrology, I’ve found that most folks, quite frankly, completely miss the point of what Astrology actually is and does.
So today, I thought I would help clear things up a bit by going into the three main astronomical misconceptions I’ve come across.
1. Astrology literally tells you your fate, and sometimes you’re just ‘screwed’ by your stars.
Um, no. This misconception is often made by super fluffy seekers who really are just wanting someone or something to tell them what to do, as they mostly see life’s circumstances to be ‘out of their control.’
I find this misconception to say more about the people who hold it than Astrology itself.
It’s based on a belief that if hard things happen it’s something out there’s fault, never their own.
In my experience, Astrology is almost the complete opposite.
Instead of a ‘written in stone’ proclamation, it’s more like a gentle nudge in the right direction, or a gentle nudge out of the wrong direction.
It’s more like a GPS system, where if you make a right and needed to make a left it pauses and then ‘recalculates’ to create a different opportunity for you to try again.
If you listen to these ‘nudges’ (aka know your soul’s truth and follow your guiding light) then Astrology can be a tool to help you live a life right up to the edges of fulfillment your Soul can possibly imagine.
If you don’t listen, well, you’ll just keep ‘recalculating’ over and over again (aka you keep repeating the same dysfunctional patterns).
2. Astrology is nonsense and completely made up
This misconception is often made by the opposite type of personality than the ‘fated’ folks mentioned above.
These are the people that COMPLETELY feel their life is in their control, and feel that there is a hard line seperating ‘free will / science’ from ‘spirituality / belief.’
While this argument may make sense at first pass, all it takes is a quick glance at basic psychology to realise that ‘free will’ and ‘belief’ are far more intertwined than we’d like to believe.
We humans only have so much capacity to take in our surroundings, and so regularly ‘edit’ what we see (aka filter it) in terms of what we deem ‘important.’
What’s important to us is based on what we orient our lives around – what we believe.
Most of the time we intensely see what fits into our belief structure, and literally don’t even see what we deem to be ‘unimportant’ (aka what doesn’t fit into our belief structure).
A good example of this would be a crowd of people all explaining what they saw after two cars get in a fender bender.
Maybe one woman who was walking across the street when the accident happened saw that one of the drivers was an attractive redhead, and this triggered her just recently being dumped by her boyfriend for a redhead, and so she unconsciously blames that driver for being the one that caused the accident.
Maybe someone else has an unconscious bias towards ‘rich people feeling like they can do whatever they want’ and so blames the driver of the expensive car versus the driver of the cheap car.
Maybe someone else has an unconscious bias towards ‘poor people playing the victim’ and so blames the driver of the cheap car versus the driver of the expensive car.
Maybe the driver who *actually* caused the accident has a belief that they are an amazing driver, and literally believes that the other person caused it.
And then maybe the driver who technically didn’t cause the accident believes that they are a terrible driver and is convinced that they are in fact the one that caused the crash.
In the end, how likely is it that everyone will agree on the same guilty driver?
While this is kind of a silly example, it shows that ‘reality’ is hardly as black and white as we’d like to think it is. (Just ask modern quantum physics!)
So let’s take all that a step further.
What if instead of looking at things objectively, we looked at things psychologically, even symbolically?
What if we started from an understanding that people and events around us ‘see’ reality (aka filter reality) in different ways, and it might very well be impossible to squish everything into one, all-encompassing ‘truth.’
What if we understood that the people who have filter A always require such and such to become successful, and filter B people require the exact opposite.
How would we know who has filter A and who has filter B?
You would know by noticing their reactions.
When this happens, they respond by that.
And by gathering thousands, even millions of ‘filter A does this, and filter B does that,’ you’d end up with a pretty substantial psychological profile – one that would allow you to, on a consistent basis, know how to interact with them, even help them shift their reality to one you feel makes more sense.
(But keep in mind, you’re just as biased).
That gathering of thousands, even millions of ‘filter A does this, and filter B does that,’ is exactly what Astrology has done.
It’s like a peek into the psychological profile of humanity.
It shows what categories of ‘filters’ we as humans have consistently kept, and continue to keep.
Filter A might be a specific Sun Sign, as people started noticing and recording that people born at that time of year always seemed to have a particular filter of reality they saw everything through.
And then they tested that with the folks born that same time the next year, and the next, and the next, for thousands of years.
Astrology in a way is like the oldest and longest running psychological study ever performed.
So I promise, there is FAR more logic and research to it than you know.
3. Astrology is just your Sun Sign
Let me make this perfectly clear, you are SO MUCH MORE than your Sun Sign.
If you only know Astrology through your monthly horoscope (I’m talking to you fluffy folks from misconception #1), then you still have no idea what Astrology is capable of.
I’m a professional Astrologer – I have literally dedicated my life to understanding myself and others through this ancient art, and even I think monthly Sun Sign horoscopes are fluffy nonsense.
They’re just too small.
Yes, you are your Sun Sign, but let’s say you have 6 Planets in another Sign – you’ll definitely resonate with that other Sign more than the one your Sun is in.
Or if your Sun is in your 12th House and you’re not into anything spiritual or humanitarian oriented – you’re definitely not going to resonate with anything written about your Sun then either. (Etc, etc).
This is why some people really resonate with their horoscopes, and others never do.
It’s just too small a filter to explain someone by.
This is why your whole Birth Chart is needed, not just your Sun Sign. In it is more information about who you are, what you need, and what you came here to do than you’ll even know what to do with.
You can study Astrology for LIFETIMES, and still have more to learn, so how on earth could a few sentences, or worse a fluffy meme, possibly do a fair job in explaining who you are?
While Sun Sign divisions can sometimes be fun little ‘sum ups,’ don’t be fooled into thinking that’s all there is.
There are 9 other main planets on top of your Sun (and hundreds of Asteroids) which are then added into the meanings of your 12 Houses and Signs.
Each Planet, House and Sign (not to mention all the angles, nodes and other points) combines with everything else to create a complex symphony of who you, unique, one of kind you, are and are unfolding to become.
Astrology is definitely more than just your Sun Sign.
IN CONCLUSION
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featured image via Deviantart