Why Astrology

Mansions of the Gods

We go to an astrologer to be lifted up to the sky and see our mundane lives from the whirling, wheeling interweaving stars. Astrologers keep up with poetic time; the time of seasons and light following, piercing darkness; moving, changing, growing, waning and disappearing for hours or days at a time. They speak the language of natural time and life cycles; plants, animals and the love uniting all things; all one life. They talk of chances flowing upon chances like a river of opportunity floating past, ready to take us away.

Astrology is a mythology of the known universe, a glamorous, glittering cloak enfolding all. Twinkles, pins and shimmering Death Valley heat; it’s all there. The sand, water, cactus, birds, insects; every imaginable life form an entity: all one. Existence, one place one moment at a time.

This Little Light

Shine on. Shine on day or night; seen, or unseen. How can we not; carrying that spark, guarding that flame; want to picture that one life, imagine the unimaginable, remember all; any touch, person, word, moment emanating from nothing into being?

Humble

No one need remove anyone’s beating heart to prove how important the sun is, how from it we depend as puppets on strings or planets in tangential arcs; just open our arms wide, lift up our heads, and soak it in; face it and feel the light.

Shining in the Night

What we build is maybe a quiet place to bring that light in from the wind and rain; to keep it burning in a place that’s more comfortable, less worrisome; the mind, where we bring the light in, shine it against rock and see stories like shadows cast by a fire in the cave. We don’t really know who said that first, or even if it was written before Plato. There’s always the possibility of another page emerging from clay and dust, a new spark ignited from the past.

Under the Sheltering Sky*

We cling to that possibility as if we were shipwrecked survivors at sea or trapped on an island. We look for ecstasy in the night because it is there we feel enclosed by one great mind; the sheltering sky. There we can see into the real distance while our vision is compromised such that traveling an unknown road would be difficult and dangerous. We are stopped at that curtain of darkness as if by a magic force-field that advances, overtakes and then recedes from us.

Astrologers take us into the night, where we see many stars and court the moon like a queen in whose glory we all delight. She shines on all, rich and poor, blind, deaf, sick and dying. They take us out into the night and call our attention to the way she is shining; what shape she is in, whether she will be visible tonight. With astrologers we follow the moon through the sky as if she were a camel crossing the desert; reminded that Egypt, Palestine, the frogs croaking in Europe and America all look up to her. Water goes to her as growing leaves reach for the sun.

Movie Magic

So we go to astrologers in the same way we enter a theater in anticipation of some cinematic thrill. We don’t want to be told how the movie will end; we want to experience the images, the music and voices for ourselves. If the movie is a success, we leave with powerful images having entered our minds. These images will provoke new streams of thought like fresh mountain springs discovered along wooded trails. No future is predicted, but possibilities have been thoughtfully, artfully explored. We feel refreshed and alive with new ideas.

Finally, we go to astrologers for comfort. They show us specifically that all things pass. When we are anxious or depressed about a situation we feel unable to control, they demonstrate how things are always changing, and unseen possibilities are always around the corner. Astrologers help us recognize and identify conflicting feelings, because astrology is a language designed to explore the many contradictions that exist within every human mind. We learn through this poetic system of time and space, how we are truly one with the universe; that we are each literally a moment of love incarnated and borne on the vast river of time.

*The Sheltering Sky – a novel by Paul Bowles