ASTROLOGY

The moment we are born we receive vibrational patterns from the positions of the planets. The planets represent different qualities and these qualities are arranged in a format to emphasise certain types of pattern or energy available for people in this life.

The Sun is the lifeforce and this is an indication of where the main thrust of our energy will be focussed. The quality experienced by the sun is experienced as Aries in the Aries sector, and will need to be expressed dynamically and with an urge to create. The Moon is a natural response we have to situations and is the emotional quality experienced. It shows where there were previous learnings and where the soul is coming from. The Moon placing refers to the qualities experienced through the signs, and houses. The placings of the planets in relationship to each other offer the general patterns of the chart. The qualities available for use as talents and the areas where there is a need for learning and undersanding.

You may wish to join the 8 week Astrology Workshop to learn more about yourself and your relationships. The classes are small and friendly 4 - 8 people. After some training from Carolyn you will be able to work through your own chart, and understand it - not only in terms of your own qualities, but also how you will be needing to express yourself in order to fulfill your karmic potentials. Carolyn Clark DayCert. Astrol. S. has been an astrologer for over 25years, specialising in relationships and karmic patterns.

Does your soul decide when it wants to be born?

Hippocrates said 2,500 years ago "when the time comes the baby stirs and breaks the membranes containing it and emerges from its mother's abdomen" recognising the baby as the agent choosing its own birth time. Modern science now knows that hormones from the baby reach the brain of the mother which triggers the contractions of the uterus. Ptolemy 500 years later rephrased the idea in incontrovertible astrological language. Likewise, Kepler believed be could demonstrate it empirically and compared his own chart to his mother's. Choisnard and Kraft tried to establish astrology empirically both using methodologically scientific procedures. Even in the field of obstetrics, within the domain of science, there is some unspoken understanding that babies do actually choose their own time of birth. Gauquelin researched the difference between induced birth and babies who chose their own times and found there is no astrological correlation with placements of planets in certain locations according to time of birth, when the birth is induced or babies are delivered by c-section. However we do see the role of fate as doctors sometimes play their role in the birth of a child at a metaphysical level.

History tells us something:

The ancient roots of astrology have been lost through time, and charlatans with little knowledge and a thirst for delusion and money have distorted the truth inherent in the understanding of the influence of the planets on our natures and characteristics. Percy Seymour, an astronomer, has spent decades researching the physical impact of gravity on the Earth. In ancient times before the 17th century the terms astrology and astronomy were often used synonymously. Astronomy was the more mathematical and astrology the more philosophical but their origins the same. A practitioner was one would be versed in both science and art. In Egypt the recording of the lunar phases goes back to at least 15,000BCE when the tides were predicted and the agricultural year was of vital importance. The cradle of civilization in the Tigris - Euphrates valley - currently known as Iraq, produced the Mesopotamian civilization around 4,000 M~BCE and the establishment of the City-states and the beginning of civilization. Daniel was the most famous astrologer during the marriage of the Greek and Mesopotamian cultures around 150 BCE. and the cosmology is essentially described in the book of Genesis chapter 1 verses 6-10 was Mesopotamian. The planetary deities range through the worship of Sin (The Moon) Shamash (the Sun) Ishtar (Venus), Nergal (Mars), Marduk (Jupiter, and Ninurta, (Saturn) . This civilisation had mathematical levels equivalent to 17th Century Europe in 2000 BCE and their interest in astronomy ws dated by the Venus Table of Amisadqa before 1600BCE. The astrology of that time is exclusively mundane (i.e. concerned with the calculation of predictions for countries and Kings by calculating the movement of the planets). This tablet was documented in the Enuma Anu Enlil with a star catalogue known as the Mul Apin (c 687 BCE see Campion's Introduction to the History of Astrology). Around 569- 510 BCE Pythagoras studied at Babylon and allowed the development in the west of the zodiac and the first individual horoscope in 409 BCE. In today's calendar we calculate using the number 6 - 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour and the Babylonians had expanded this into a great astrological age based on the multiples of 6. The 60x60x60x2 is 432,000 a "Great Year". In the early years of astrology the Baru priests who were in charge of divination provided advice for the king were the preservers of the this ancient knowledge. Later during the Hellenistic period before Christ, astrology became democratised and secularised. Commercialisation grew with the Greek culture.

The Greek civilization of Homer recorded in the Iliad and the Odyssey describes a "Golden Age" when Greece experienced the Heroic period. Around 600 BCE the intellect grew in the human race with Confucius and Lao Tsu in China, Buddha in India and Zoroaster in Persia. In the Holy land Ezekiel; creating a change in the system of religion. In Greece Pythagoras of Samos synthesised religion and science which was very influential until the 17th Century. Pythagoras had brought the ancient knowledge to the modern situation and defined the cause of irregular planetary orbits. Hesiod wrote Works and Days around 750 BCE suggesting times which are appropriate for such things as marriage, travel, etc. Thales is accredited as the founder of the Ionian school which was based on the Aegean coast at Miletus. He predicted the eclipse whose effect stopped the war between the Medes and the Lydians who lived in Asia Minor. It is suggested that this eclipse was 585 BCE. Anaximander believed that the Universe was very influential and described spheres where planets travelled which was the basis of astronomical thought up to the 17th Century. He defined the "Law of return of all things" which is still a central concept of astrology.