Finding Our Growth Points

point of contact

Sensitive places in our birth charts

At each New Moon, I point all of us to our birth charts, to learn where the New Moon will fall and therefore how it might touch our charts. This Sagittarius New Moon cycle feels like a good time to say more about how that works.

Everyone has a birth chart, and everyone's chart is at least slightly different. The closest charts, of course, will be those of twins (and other multiple birth babies) born in the same location mere minutes apart.

To create a birth chart, we need the date, time and location. Here's Michelangelo's chart, just to show that time is no barrier as long as the information is available.

More often than you'd think, the exact time of birth is unknown. In such cases, there are complicated ways to figure out what the most likely time of birth was. There are some easier seat-of-the-pants ways, which are the only ones I know, but true chart rectification (as it's called) is a specialty all its own.

So, one way or another, you get your chart. It looks complicated. It IS complicated. Each of us is uniquely and wonderfully complex and why shouldn't our charts reflect that?

Over time––getting a chart reading from an astrologer you like, reading on your own––you begin to learn your way around your chart. My sun in Libra in the Second House, my Virgo Moon conjunct my Ascendant and Pluto, my Mercury-Neptune conjunction in the Third, all offer pictures and ideas about who and why I am that help me understand and respond to life in interesting ways.

The real proof of the pudding, though, is what my chart can tell me about what's happening in my life right now.

To get to that kind of insight, I need to (1) have my birth chart somewhere I can easily get to it ... i.e., on my computer, (2) pay some attention at least some of the time to what's happening in the sky, astrologically, and (3) connect those two together.

I don't do this every moment of every day. Really, I don't. I also get confused and sometime make mistakes when answering off the cuff questions, like suggesting an evening planet was probably Venus when she's appearing in the morning sky these days. (The planet in question was Jupiter.)

But I do pay attention, and when things come together in a particular way, I learn something.

Real life example: Michelle Suzanne creates a weekly podcast for Sasstrology which I've been following and like. She described the now-happening shift of Venus into Sagittarius as possibly leading to a feeling of never having enough––Sagittarius being about, among other things, always wanting more, and Venus being about our relationships, creativity, money and values.

Now, I'd never quite thought of Venus in Sagittarius that way, but the ides caught my attention. Sure enough, on the day of the shift (without immediately realizing this was happening), I found myself sinking into one of those never-good-enough morasses.

Then, the astrological light went on––Venus at 0 Sag was squaring my Moon at 0 Virgo! Any time anything went through 0 Sag, this would happen, and since Virgo Moon are notoriously self critical, this is suddenly no surprise.

Astrology in that moment offered me a shift (which is why I like it). Yes, I was feeling very not-all-that, and now I could ask myself why and how that was happening. What did I want that was missing from my life? How could I engage Venus and the Moon, Sagittarius and Virgo, to either help me get it, or let it go?

Are there other ways to do this? Sure there are, and they work just fine. Astrology happens to work for me, and is also fun.

I'm available for chart readings! Chart readings make lovely gifts, this being the gift season and all. Readings are a wonderful way to open the door into your chart, an intriguing way to get you know your wonderfully, magically unique self.