Is astrology bunkum – or is there something in it?

This is not quite as obvious as it might seem.

Years ago, when I was much younger, I was really interested in astrology. There was probably a fashion for it at the time. I'm a Piscean, and people used to tell me I was meant to be this or that… Pisceans are meant to be very sensitive, they have a lazy streak, they're procrastinating, they never get things done.

I used to get really annoyed at this. I used to think: how can you tell me what I'm like, when you don't even know me, just because of what my sun sign says?

That kind of astrology seems nonsense.

The astrological chart

But then I found out that there was more to astrology than just your sun sign. There's also your astrological chart, there's your moon sign, and the signs that all the planets were in when you were born… and because I was going through a kind of insecure, questioning phase:

Who am I? Where am I going? What am I going to be?

– I started to get really interested in astrology.

I wasn't sure if there was really anything in it, but I used to notice that people who had certain signs dominant in their chart would often take on the characteristics of those signs. For example, a lot of people with Leo signs were very talkative and would often dominate the conversation. Whether it's just psychological or whether there is something in this is what I would like to look at.

I'm also interested in astronomy – actually looking at the stars and the planets through a telescope. I don't do it very much these days, but I used to rent a cottage on a farm. The skies were so dark, you could see the stars at night and the Milky Way.

Navigation by starlight

There was one time when I was on holiday in Turkey and we went on an evening yacht trip. The sky was very clear and dark, and the stars were so bright. I was looking at the Pole Star and the constellation of the Plough. I knew what position that constellation was in, and because we were moving away from it, I could tell that we were going south. And it made me think about how important the stars were in the past as navigation tools.

Source

The Plough, or Big Dipper.

After that, I started to think: if the stars are used for navigation, it's not that they are actually physically guiding the ships. We are just using their positions as a tool.

It's their position in relation to the earth that is significant, and we can use that to find our direction.

Finding our direction

In the same way, maybe there's a force that science hasn't discovered yet, that affects us. So it's not that the stars are physically guiding our lives – it's that this force can be read by looking at the planets and the stars.

We know that the moon has an effect on the tides, and that's all to do with magnetism. This can affect people psychologically. It can affect the weather. The position of the planets in relation to the earth can affect the earth's magnetic forces.

But this doesn't meant they are in charge of us physically. I just think there may be some force that can be read and interpreted from the stars.

It's just a thought. I'm not saying that astrology is or is not correct – I just think it could be. Certainly astrology has been in use for centuries, and astrology and astronomy used to be the same thing centuries ago.

Over those centuries – thousands of years really – some of the positions of those stars have changed. So maybe it's not surprising that astrology isn't exactly accurate. It's not an exact science.

But I think there is something in it… possibly.

Surrendering responsibility?

These days I'm just not interested in astrology – not because it's wrong or anything, but because I don't have time for it. I'm not interested in finding out who I am or what I'm going to do in the future.

I also feel that there's an issue about wanting something else to be in charge of us. When you're young you're leaving your parents' home and you're wanting to be in charge of yourself, which is quite a scary thing. So maybe you're looking for things outside of yourself to take responsibility; to take charge of things.

And now I want to be the person in charge. I'm not interested in reading what's in the stars, or what might be in the future for tomorrow. It's more about me – I want to be the one who has an impact on my own life.

I'm not discarding astrology – I'm just not as interested in it as I was at one point. But I think it's good to have an open mind about these things, because maybe in the future they'll find out that we can read our future in the stars.

Astrology photo source

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