What is Astrology?

Whenever I talk about astrology, I recognize that a large part of my work is educating others, a kind of meta-education. I must teach you what I’m talking about as I’m talking about it. Thus, I don’t take for granted that there isn’t a consensus on what astrology is and what its purpose and function is.

Many people, many who have not heard of a birth chart, think astrology is horoscopes based on your “sign” (properly, the sign your Sun occupied at the time of your birth), and that there are like 12 “prototypes” that astrology uses to define people. It’s very simplistic. People who view astrology that way are the same people who would say that “the English language is the alphabet.”

They’re not taking into consideration the cultural context for language, and that the alphabet is the basic building blocks of language, just like numbers are the basic building block for math.There is much implied in the structure and way that we count, or in the variety of languages that there are, or in the alphabet as characters that make up words in a language. But those things are not the language itself. So, we can say the same thing of astrology, that the 12 zodiac signs are not astrology itself.

What is Astrology by Dayna Lynn Nuckolls - The Peoples's Oracle.

The Fundamental Question

What is astrology? This can be a difficult question to answer because we can break down anything into its pieces; we can dissect it into parts. We can say astrology is planets, signs, and houses. But that’s not really telling me what astrology is, why it is, or how and why it functions.

Part of why I want to talk about this is because I have been thinking about what I do when I sit down with a client, and how I’m looking at this person’s chart and I don’t know them from Adam or Eve, or Steve, or whatever their names are. I am able to tell them about their mother, their father, their home, family, and their interests, their health, and their illness, and the times of important events in their lives, and help them piece together their stories. And, I’m in awe every day.

What is astrology that I can do this with it? That I can tell the story of someone’s life, without them giving me any information besides their birth data, what is the power of these symbols?

Note: How I talk about astrology, how I define astrology, is not necessarily something I sat down and come up with among other astrologers. It’s not something that I’ve read somewhere. It’s not something you can go find in a book somewhere. I won’t say my ideas are completely original. Everything is derivative in, nothing is completely original.

The content in this post is from a LIVE Instagram broadcast. It has been heavily edited for clarity. You can find the original video here: Daily Live – February 20, 2019: What is #Astrology?

Astrology is a Language

Astrology is a language. Language is a complex set of symbols that we use to think about, visualize, and talk about ourselves and the world around us.

Language is a consequence of consensus. Consensus is cultural. When I say apple, you think of a round, likely red, food item. We have agreed to call that object an apple. Maybe if I say pomme then the pomme you envision is yellow or green, based on your cultural imagery around that word and object.

The Complexity of Language

So, now let’s get to the real meat of it. I’ve established that astrology is a language, which is a complex set of symbols, that we use to name, visualize, think about, and talk about ourselves and the world around us. Astrology helps us in that regard.

Now, the next piece is, if astrology is a language, what is the alphabet? What is the lexicon and syntax of it? In any language there is a syntax; there is a lexicon; there is a correspondence of these symbols to some concept or object, person or place in our world. What is the grammar? What are the pieces that we put together to make this language?

In language we have alphabets or character sets— each letter or character, corresponds to a sound. And, depending on how those letters come together, the sound is going to change. Even the sounds that letters make are very culturally significant and specific, right, if you hear English, and the derivatives of English, or rather, the languages that English is derived from: Latin, the Romance languages, Germanic languages, Native words—the English language is an amalgamation of all the colonial exploits of England. But if we go to China, it’s a totally different way of organizing the symbols. They have characters that are pictures, and those are very complex in how they’re organized.

Language as a Cultural Phenomenon

A book called Barracoon by Zora Neale Hurston was finally published after years of being withheld. A story on NPR talked about Zora Neale Hurston’s insistence that Kossula, the person about whom the book is written, tell his story in his own dialect. The editorial director of the publisher, Deborah Plant, spoke about the importance of preserving the way that Kossula spoke about himself. There was no ‘I’ in his culture. She explained how in American Western culture there is this constant reinforcing of ‘I’: ‘I say.’ ‘I do.’ ‘I feel.’ ‘I think.’ Whereas in his culture, ‘I’ is implied; he’s standing right here before you, so he doesn’t have to say ‘I’. This is the complexity of language. And I explain that because I want to apply this and help you understand something about astrology: just

So, in that sense astrology, like language, is explicitly a cultural phenomenon.

As with any language, astrology emerges from a cultural and historical context. Astrology is not something that’s uniquely Western. It’s not uniquely European or American. Astrology is Indian. Astrology is Babylonian and Sumerian and Mesopotamian. Astrology is Kemetic. Astrology is of the Asian Diaspora, practiced in Korea, in China, in Singapore, in Malaysia. And each of these astrologies emerges from relevant cultural contexts.

When we pull together the building pieces of any astrology we always start with the Sun and the Moon, which are not planets. The Sun is a star. It is the biggest star, the closest star. The Moon is, for all intents and purposes, a big ol’ rock. We observe it as a marker of time, and have done so for time immemorial. So much of our orientations of our bodies in the world are rooted in the Moon and our observations of the Moon. Again, not necessarily anything astrological at this point, but purely astronomical, in that we watch the Moon wax and wane in its light.

All astrological traditions start with those two pieces. Then we spread out to other bodies that are observable with the naked eye. You must remember telescopes weren’t always a thing. This brings up something that is important to astrology, is that it’s a visual art. I know that we have all these complex words and concepts and things—this sign is this or that planet is that. But, astrology is first an observable phenomena, rooted in astronomy.

Astrology vs Astronomy

There was a time where astronomy and astrology were no different; they were the same thing. At some point there was a power struggle around access to knowledge that split the two into different disciplines with divergent social, religious, and political implications. Then science became this thing no longer practiced by clergy who have the privilege to study and learn math and all of these things. At that point it becomes the privilege of the aristocracy.

We start with the Sun and Moon, then we move to the observable bodies that are visible to the naked eye. So now that’s Mercury, that’s Venus, that’s Mars, that’s Jupiter, and that’s Saturn.

In observing the astronomical cycles of these planets, we begin to understand how they move and correlate and the time frames with them.

Ah! So, let’s see every day, within this timeframe the Sun is doing the this over here in the East, but then it does something else over here in the West!
— Observe & record.

Ah! Okay, the Moon is doing this today, but 29 days ago it did this same thing.—
—Observe & record.

Ah! Whoa, Mercury’s doing this thing, but then it’s doing this thing-but that thing-then this thing-then that thing-then this thing — Venus, the same for Saturn and Mars and Jupiter, and Venus.

Alright, so we’re observing, in relationship to time and space, what these bodies are doing.

The whole point is that astrology is rooted in this observation. And that in astrology, everything is about visibility. When we’re talking about the houses, we’re talking about observable, astronomical, and physical phenomena in space and time. When we’re talking about a Saturn Return, or where the Sun is, or what the Moon is doing, again, we’re talking about observable phenomena.

Astrology Segments, Names, and Interprets Time

Astrology is a tool, for measuring, naming, and interpreting time. Just like clocks and calendars, except there’s the added dimension of ‘but what does that mean?’ Astrology is similar to a calendar or a clock; it names and segments time. In astrology we observe the astronomical phenomenon of how planets appear to move with Earth as a reference point. And with those observations, we segment and name a period of time in relation to that.

The segment of time designated as a year correlates to the astronomical cycle of the Sun. Why? Because it takes approximately 365 days (a time segment which we have designated ‘year’) for the Sun to return to a designated reference point. But implied in that astronomical measurement is that the Sun is doing something observable, predictable, and consistent.

Each planet has its own cycle. The Moon has a 29-day cycle. Mercury varies. Venus varies. Jupiter has 12 years. Saturn has 29 years. All of these planets— and this is not astrological, in the sense of there’s no interpretation yet— this is purely astronomical. It is astronomical— observable and measurable— that Saturn is doing this thing in 29 years. The Moon is doing this thing in 29 days. The Sun is doing this thing in 365 days.

Like language, time, too, is a consequence of consensus. We have agreed on what is one minute, one hour, one day, one second, one month, one year, a decade, a century. There’s a consensus around what those things mean, so that when I say ‘one week,’ I don’t have to explain that to you, you know what that is.

Unlike calendars and unlike clocks, astrology interprets time. It tells us what it means. So, in that sense, I say, astrology helps us to name and define and interpret the seasons and times of our life.

A Time & Season for All Things

We know that at particular times of year, based on how much sunlight there is, how much rain (or not) there is, whatever the temperature is—we know that there is an appropriate thing to do at that particular time. That is, if we want a certain outcome from the land. We organize our lives around those appropriate times. We organize our lives around the hours of daylight and nighttime so that we know that there is an appropriate time to do things.

We think about times and seasons in relationship to our physical bodies— how we grow our food, how we eat, how we sleep, the schedule that we have in our bodies and in our lives. But we don’t always think about that regarding the choices that we make and the undertakings that we choose to endeavor upon at any give time.

Unlike a calendar or a clock, astrology interprets time. It tells us what is happening and what it means. It helps us to build a narrative around a particular story.

Now, we can say, not only is there a time for planting food, for harvesting, for sowing, for tilling. There’s also a time for things to happen in our own lives. So, my favorite scripture, my favorite scripture to reference in this context, talks about
‘There’s a time for death, and birth, and growth, conservation, joy, celebration, atonement.’ There’s a time for all of these things. Yet and still, as a culture, we have not really grasped, the practical and spiritual significance of that truth. Astrology is this tool that helps us do that.

Summary

Astrology is a language—a complex set of symbols used to talk about, think about, and conceptualize the world around us. All languages emerge from a specific cultural context and are dynamic.

Astrology is a tool for measuring time. Like a clock and a calendar, with the added functionality of defining the quality and meaning of time.

Astrology is rooted in astronomy, which is the tangible, physical, measurable cycles and phenomena of the planets. What they’re doing in relationships to themselves, and what they’re doing in relationship to each other.

Check out this post on some of the philosophical differences between the tropical and the sidereal zodiac. I’ve outlined some of the technical differences between the tropical and sidereal zodiacs in this 70 minute webinar (with accompanying PDF). Get a very special reading focused on understanding the differences between your tropical birth chart and your sidereal birth chart in this comparison reading.

New Services + Changes!

As many of you know because you follow me on Twitter, my life just had a big change with my boy going to kindergarten. It’s been an exciting and exhausting first week as we adjust to our new schedules.

This change in our lives coincides with significant Saturn transits for the both of us. And as I always say, do Saturn or Saturn will do you! So, I’m doing Saturn. That means recognizing that I have limited time and energy. I mean, it’s obvious at this point.

In this spirit, I’ve made changes to the readings that I offer. I’ve added some new readings and made adjustments to the prices and lengths of the readings to better reflect the reality of how the readings have been going. This allows me to offer a wider variety of readings and different price points.

Below please find the updated list of readings that I am now offering. You can head over to my booking page to schedule now.

Continue reading “New Services + Changes!”

Tropical Zodiac vs Sidereal Zodiac?

Tropical zodiac vs Sidereal zodiac, which one should astrologers use?

tropical vs sidereal - a dual wheel comparing each zodiac

First and foremost, it’s a personal choice. As with most techniques, I am a proponent of each person using what works for them. Essentially, however, I think the choice between the Tropical zodiac and Sidereal zodiac is a philosophical choice, rather than a technical choice between which one is more mathematically accurate.

Many articles detail the technical differences between the tropical zodiac and the sidereal zodiacs, as well as why astrologers would use one or the other. That is not the purpose of this essay. Here, The Art of Vedic Astrology: Sidereal vs. Tropical, you can read a simple explanation on the technical differences between the two zodiacs. Read here (Martin Gansten Traditional Astrologer: Tropical and sidereal) about the historical divergence of the two zodiacs in western astrology. Here, I intend to touch on the philosophical differences between the Tropical and Sidereal Zodiacs.

The zodiac is primarily a language of symbols. It is the attribution of meaning to clusters of stars, constellations, in the sky. More specifically, the meaning is attributed, in both the Tropical and Sidereal zodiacs, to 30 degree divisions of space beginning and ending at a specific point, not the actual constellations which are uneven in size.

From what is the symbolism of the zodiac derived? The answer to that question is complex.

In modern astrology the Tropical zodiac’s symbolism is a mixture of Northern Hemisphere seasonal correlations (Aries = Spring) and loose connections between the names of the planets and Greek and Roman mythology (ie. Mars, god of war). There are also some significations that come from the symbolism of the animals or objects attribute to be revealed in the constellations. So, Taurus the Bull is stubborn and willful.

The meaning attributed to and associated with signs of the Tropical zodiac seems to be more of reverse engineering. The physical experience of the seasons is attributed to the sign and planet. However in the sidereal zodiac, and especially traditionally, the symbolism of the signs comes primarily from the nature of the planets that rule each sign. In Hellenistic terms, this means the system of essential dignities and debilities.

This is not meant to be a conversation about traditional versus modern astrology; however, it is relevant since the sidereal zodiac in modern times is, with rare exception, almost exclusively used by Vedic astrologers who maintain a fairly unbroken history of astrological practice. A major philosophical difference then, is that the Tropical zodiac reflects the earliest homogenization of a western culture, an attempt at normalizing astrological time.

To be clear, one kind of zodiacal symbolism is readily experienced in the physical sense, that being Tropical. And the other, Sidereal, can be observed as a phenomenon of time in space.

The phenomenon of precession – which defines the fundamental difference between how the Tropical and Sidereal zodiacs are calculated – reflects the subjective nature of time. Tropical is convenient and orderly in a way the normalizes, or standardizes time, forsaking the shifting nature of time within the context of space for something more subjective to our experience on Earth, something more ‘universal’.

The subjective nature of time is apparent with the Sidereal, but hidden with Tropical. In Sidereal the Aries point, beginning of the zodiac, moves as the stars in our solar system move against the backdrop of the Milky Way Galaxy, thus subtly shifting where the zodiac begins as each hour, day, and year passes. But in Tropical, the Aries point remains fixed, tethered to the intimate relationship between the Earth’s rotation around the sun.

The primary function of the zodiac is as a language of symbols. The zodiac is not measuring anything tangible. Words are symbols to represent concepts. They are used in place of actual objects, to communicate their meaning or purpose. But the words are not the objects themselves. And they could never  The same can be said of the signs of the zodiac. The zodiac is not the thing; the zodiac is the symbol that helps to communicate the thing.

Astrologer Samuel Reynolds of unlockastrology.com, and co-founder of the International Society of Black Astrologers, sees the divergence of the two zodiacs as a cultural issue. Here is an excerpt from a conversation we had on the subject.

To touch on your question, I want to be clear that I look at the divergence of the two Zodiacs a little differently. I think the divergence is more a cultural issue, and I think it’s the divergence in the cultures that has led to the longevity of the distinctions between the sidereal and tropical Zodiacs. I think the Zodiac is largely an invention or mnemonic for the seasons as that link suggests. That’s what has made more sense to me. However, it’s the a posteriori re-reading of the history of different cultures at the point of drifting between the two Zodiacs that make us see an intellectual distinction that, again, came after the fact.

India actually became more of an insular containment field of astrology for centuries after the Greeks left. They ended up merging much of their own indigenous astrology with Hellenistic. The focus on the constellations goes along with a long standing tradition of Indians to be concerned with the whole. The subjective nature of West is on the individual, as that is the prime achievement of the West. There’s no such ultimate intention in Indian history. The individual is part of a collective, a constellation of being.

In this sense, sidereal astrology is situational, starting with the premise that an individual is coalesced into something larger than herself. In the big picture, this is accurate. However, if I’m focused on a more self-contained, isolated sense of self as my identity, then the tropical speaks to me.

So, what zodiac do you use? Is there a philosophical reason that you choose one or the other? I’d love to hear your answers. Tweet me! @PeoplesOracle

Guide: How to Create Your Sidereal Birth Chart

This is a guide on how to create your sidereal birth chart.

Introduction

Most astrologers use the Tropical zodiac. Since I use the Sidereal zodiac (Lahiri ayanamsa), I’ve gotten a lot of requests from my friends on Twitter (@PeoplesOracle) about how to create their chart this way. If you have never created your birth chart, you can use this guide to see your chart in Tropical as well.

Find a gallery of images with screenshots of the steps at the end of this post.

This guide helps you to create your sidereal birth chart.

Steps to Create Your Sidereal Birth

Step #1 – Go to Astro.com – Visit Astro.com and clink the link in the upper right hand corner to either log in or to create your account.

Step #2 – If you are a new user to Astro.com, click “Create a free registered user profile” at the bottom of the welcome screen. If you already have an account, login and skip to Step #6.

Step # 3 – Enter your information in the registration form in order to create an account. You will have to click “OK” twice.

Step #4 – Once you have clicked “OK” twice, the next screen will allow you to edit your account settings and add your birth data. Go to the bottom of the User profile overview screen and click “Add new Astro data”.

Step #5 – Enter your birth data on the Birth Data Entry Page. Click “continue”.

Step #6 – Hover over, or click “Free Horoscopes” on the menu bar toward the top of the page. Click “Extended Chart Selection“.

Step #7 – Here are the settings you will use to create your sidereal birth chart:

  1. Methods: Please select a chart type – Natal Chart Wheel
  2. Zodiac: Select Sidereal
  3. Ayanamsha: Hindu/Lahiri
  4. House System: Whole Signs (Must use this setting for the 2019 Sidereal Astrology Guide & the 2019 Sidereal Moon Transits Guide)
  5. Click:Click here to show the chart”

Here are screenshots of the steps listed above showing how to create your sidereal birth chart: